The application based taxi service provider Uber and Ola launched their on demand motorcycle taxi service in Bangalore. Both the companies hope that the new service will be availed by the customers looking for short distance ride in the grid locked Bangalore city traffic.
Amit Jain, president of Uber India said,
“We are very excited to pilot uberMOTO in Bengaluru — pairing our on-demand technology platform with motorbikes, the predominant mode of transport in India, uberMOTO will offer another affordable mobility option that will help people save time and money while helping cut congestion in our cities over time.”
The Uber has termed its motorcycle taxi service as “uberMOTO” and it will be available in selected parts of the city and the new service will work in the same way as other options uberGo, uberX and uber Black works in our smartphones with a base fare at Rs.14 and Rs.3 per kilometre plus Rs 1 per minute. Currently the service is available for 14 hours a day and starts at 7 am in the morning.
Whereas Uber’s biggest competitor, Ola will charge a minimum fare of Rs.30 and Rs.2 per kilometre along with Rs.1 for one minute for its motorcycle taxi service.
Pranay Jivrajka, chief operating officer, Ola 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.”
Uber has inaugurated similar bike taxi service in Bangkok last week. The company had earlier tried offering autorickshaws on its Delhi/NCR application, which they withdrew later.
Uber didn’t disclosed the number of motorcycles on its Bangalore based application during the initial phase. The company they have incorporated like like GPS tracking and the ability to share trip details with friends and family into uberMOTO.
In January this year, Two-wheeler taxi service called Bikxie Pink was launched. It offers two-wheeler taxi’s exclusively for women and has only women riders. The service was started by the firm called Bikxie which started its operations with Bikxie Blue, bikes with male rider. They charge Rs.10 for first two kms and Rs.5 for every extra kilometer, which is cheap compared to other transport options in Gurgaon. Bikxie app also comes with SOS feature to ensure safety of the users. The service runs between 8am to pm and will take you anywhere in Gurgaon.
