Bengaluru: On-demand taxi hailing service competitors Ola, owned by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, and Uber Technologies Inc. will launch their bike taxi services on Thursday in Bengaluru on a pilot basis.
UberMOTO will have a base fare of Rs.15 and Rs.3 per km and Rs.1 per minute, the company said in a statement. Ola, on the other hand, has announced an introductory fare of Rs.2 per km and Rs.1 per minute of trip time and the minimum fare will be Rs.30, the statement said.
“With bike taxis, we are enabling safe pillion rides for our users with trained two-wheeler drivers at competitive fares. We expect significant demand in the pilot phase and we will continue to scale this service up in the coming weeks to cover more areas in the city and serve more users,” said Pranay Jivrajka, chief operating officer at Ola, in a statement on Thursday.
The Ola app currently displays a “bike” option for commuting, along with its other services like Ola Micro, Ola Mini, Share and Prime. There are no bikes available, however, and the text above the bike icon reads “no cabs”.
The two-wheeler taxis can be booked on the Ola app which will include display of driver details, SOS, live tracking and digital payment options using Ola Money, the statement said. All pillion riders will be provided with helmets as it is mandatory for both riders and passengers to wear helmets in Bengaluru.
For Uber, the move to introduce two-wheeler taxis comes barely two weeks after the US-based company announced its bike taxi services in Bangkok, Thailand.
“We are very excited to pilot uberMOTO in Bangalore—pairing our on-demand technology platform with motorbikes, the predominant mode of transport in India. Enabling transportation at the push of a button, uberMOTO will offer another affordable mobility option that will help people save time and money while helping cut congestion in our cities over time,” said Amit Jain, president, Uber India, in a statement.
Uber is looking to rope in motorcycles and scooter owners to become drivers on its platforms. The company will share the driver details with the customer along with photo and bike details.
To ensure safety, Uber will ensure that all two-wheeler taxis have GPS tracking, two-way feedback and ability to share trip details with family and friends, the company said in a statement. The customer can pay by credit or debit card, mobile wallet or Airtel money for the service.
Ola recently launched Ola Micro, a low-cost offering with rides at Rs.6 per km to boost its market share and appeal to price-sensitive customers.
Start-ups like Baxi and M-Taxi are already offering bike-taxi services, are operational in Gurgaon, and have received seed funding.
Motorbike taxis are popular in countries like Vietnam and China, and Indonesia, where they are also used to deliver hyper-local services.
Globally, the market for motorcycle taxis is worth $500 billion, according to World Moto Inc., a maker of motorcycle taxi meters.
In India, states like Haryana and Goa have permitted two-wheelers to be used as taxis as it would offer more affordable services that are faster and convenient.
Ola is present in 102 cities and has 350,000 vehicles across cabs, auto-rickshaws and taxis in its fleet. In March 2015, Ola had acquired TaxiForSure for $200 million to fend off rivals like Uber and Meru cabs.
Uber has introduced more cities and services to compete with ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd-run Ola, which continues to have a larger market share of the on-demand cab hailing service market in India. Uber had suspended its auto-rickshaw rides, uberAUTO, in Delhi in December 2015, nearly seven months after the service was launched to compete against Ola, which claims to have over 70,000 autos on its platform. Uber is present in 26 cities, while Ola has a presence in over 100 cities in the country.
In October last year, Ola and Uber launched their respective carpool facility.
