Ola cabs is India’s largest ride-hailing service. Ola cabs averages 750,000 rides a day with the target to hit 1 million cabs by the end of the year. The startup has operations in 100 cities in India with plans to double the number to 200 by year end. In a bid to effectively compete with San-Francisco based Uber, Ola previously raised $500 Million in funding to allow it roll-out new services. Uber has $1 Billion war-chest for the Indian market. Ola received its funding from among others Uber’s main competitor in China Didi Kuaidi, now referred as Didi Chuxing.
To that effect, Ola cabs has begun rolling new services which includes a car pooling feature. The car pooling service allows users to create or join a group of colleagues or college buddies (or simply opt in to the open group) and choose the Share option when booking a ride, and you’ll automatically be matched with others from the groups that you’re a part of. The service is currently under the testing phase with plans to launch in five major cities in India in the next few months. The service allows up to 3 passengers to car pool with the major differentiation in the service being the fact that users know each other as they are part of a group.
The feature is among other things to help alleviate security fears among riders as well as let people pay a fairly lower fare for using the service.
Source: Ola Cabs
