Tag: travel

Addressing Road Safety Challenges in India

On the eve of the day when 2 souls had to leave this world by the way of road accidents in Pune. While this is almost a daily incident now a days in almost all major cities. While our (so called) Undying Spirits push us to move forward in lives, thinking this won’t happen to me. But today my mind delved into the problem and possible solutions to this.

I am sure nothing new might come up than what we all already know. But I would attempt to push the envelope one more time.

  1. We need to value LIFE.

I feel in India we are doing miserably on this point. Lives lost on road / terror attack / Game celebrations / factory and we feel it for minutes and then we move on, like it never happened or will never happen again. And then it happens again after a few weeks. May be this is because we are second most populous country of the world. This has numbed us towards the human life. We need to value human lives more.

If this thought is not nurtured, we will never design our roads / safety / systems & processes to not harm or to save human lives.

  1. We need stronger permanent solutions not stop gap arrangements.

Now a days there is a trend for quick fix for all most all problems and we all take it as solution. It’s like a solution in guise of a temporary action. Like it’s fashion now a days of building speed breakers whenever accidents happen. Fire someone or ask for resignations. Announce a compensation or job offer or some other tangible handout. Everyone feels good that action happened and no one actually goes to understand whether it is a pattern or one of incidence.

As far as on road safety is concerned, I have been proponent of banning 3-wheelers for years now. I love their usability & affordability and I have nothing against them. But the same advantage manoeuvrability is now becoming a menace. Same with 2 Wheelers. But you may argue that this will be a big pain for many people – yes that’s correct. But desperate times need desperate measures. We need some very serious changes on Road related issues.

And that is exactly why I propose a strong public transport and good roads. If government provides efficient public transport and good condition roads no one would want to drive 2 wheelers. A public – private partnership should be explored in this and with a cap on charges.

e.g: I was surprised to read that Tokyo had same territorial area as Bangalore. Population of Tokyo is 3X that or Bangalore. Looking at current situation in Bangalore – in Tokyo no one should be able to live, yet it thrives. Tokyo has one of the worlds best Metros. Metros there make approx. 3~4 crore trips / day while Namma Metro is tuck at around 6~6.5 Lac trips / day.

  1. Civic sense.

Not all fingers point towards others. We as people also need to slow down a bit. Access where are we going so hurriedly? Why so much road rage? What do we do by saving those 5 minutes and risking lives on road? Is that phone call so important to twist your neck and talk on road? I guess it’s in fact quite ridiculous the way we behave. For this we need stricter license rules. Higher penalties. Stronger laws. Again, a very unpopular step but we need to understand and inculcate that Driving is a Privilege not Right. But before this there needs to be accountability. For road conditions / for better transport / for better infrastructure. Administration and people both have to play there part or else we keep losing precious lives for most stupid reasons.

Last but not least.

  1. We need our startups to find real world solutions rather than food delivery apps.

Food delivery startups sure have generated quite some employment. But they also have increased traffic and also put the anxiety on commuters due to lower delivery times. No one is dying if grocery does not get delivered in less than 10 mins.

Why no startup is working to make an integrated grid using AI and cameras / drones to find traffic bottlenecks / accident prone areas / areas where maximum traffic violation happens and redesign roads so people need not break the rules.

Why are they not working on solution on better routes / better public transport / better locations for bridges etc to predict and prevent jams.

If we as a society remain fully driven by money and not actual issues troubling us, we can never move from developing to a developed economy.

I feel developed economy is not just GDP or Per Capita, it’s a mindset.

It’s a state of harmony between commercial, social and personal wellbeing.

To sum up the article, I feel we need to awake to the fact that roads are increasingly becoming dangerous due to our own bad civic sense, no regard to rules and regulations and unwanted rush along with administrations lethargy to address issues with permanent solutions instead of quick fix, no inclination to enhancing public transport or diligent focus on creating and maintaining good infrastructure. The need of the hour is to accept our mistakes and embrace the tough decisions for our and future generations benefits.

In case you feel to add any points or any solutions, please feel free to share the same in comments box.

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Ola and Uber: Unpacking the Ride-Hailing Crisis in India

We all were used to good comfortable rides in Ola & Uber. The convenience, safety, AC, comfort, etc. all in all it was a dream come true about 8~10 years back. Majority of customers shifted from extorting Auto-Rickshaws to these Cabs. As a cherry on top, you need not plan the trip or hold the taxi for day it was a point-to-point connectivity. This looked like and amazing Win-Win model for all, Drivers, Customers & the company. So, what has gone wrong in last 3~4 years that all the pieces of this amazing puzzle are falling apart.

Let’s deep dive to understand. For context let’s start from the very Start.

India was primarily an Auto commute economy, so majority of people used to use Auto rikshaw / Tuk Tuk as the means for last mile connectivity. For the more privileged or corporate people there was always some neighbouring travel agency, who took cab bookings. This was a very unorganised market, with lot of third-party transactions where reliability was always a problem. Then came the era of Radio Taxis (booking cabs on call centre). This was efficient but needed advance planning.

In this scenario emerged 2 companies who had a very organised structure and gave a very strong alternative to above options. Advantage they offered:

  1. Clean Cabs with friendly driver.
  2. You had a voice with cab and driver rating.
  3. Point-to-Point connectivity, almost instantly.
  4. All this at reasonable prices.

Indian consumers were elated that at last someone addressed their pain.

What was in it for Drivers:

  1. Freedom from Job – Own business, they were now completely on their own. They could decide their daily income / time to work / take leaves whenever they needed.
  2. Incentives and good strong income.
  3. Respectable option to blue collar jobs and problems with those jobs. Overtime etc.

So, what was company gaining out of this:

They provided a platform to bridge the gap between customers and service providers and charged a fee for the same.

Prima Facie this looks very rosy, so where did the problems start. To know this let’s understand the business model of Ola and Uber.

Any platform needs 2 main constituents Customer and Seller. Now at the start you will have to lure both of them on your platforms. Why lure? Because there is already a system existent and you are proposing a new one, change needs a catalyst. So, these platform companies follow this broad business model:

  1. Bait: So, to lure the customers and sellers, they throw the bait. Discounts, Incentives, high margins, etc. At this step all platform business lose cash (in financial terms this is called Cash Burn).
  2. Network: In this step the current customers and sellers influence / aspire other customers and sellers. This is called customer acquisition strategy. At this step as well the cash burn is continuing.
  3. Stabilising: Once there is good activity and strong customer base and sellers are added, what starts happening is old existing systems collapse and both customers and sellers rely more on this new system. You become addictive to this way and this becomes the new normal. This is the time of reduced incentives, reduced discounts, etc. but your comfort still pushes you to use this system.
  4. Monetize: This is commercial step where the platform starts dictating the terms. Now you feel trapped but are left with no major choices as rest of the ecosystem is already dead. Now you remain stuck and platforms can now milk you for profits. They have supreme control on entire process. This is where comes Surge Pricing, all your home / office rides are costlier, odd times or odd locations pick up or drops become costlier. None of this extra income generated goes to driver (may be a small percentage) all is pocketed by platform.

Now that we understand the business model, you would have guessed what happened to Auto rikshaw and private travel agents and call cabs. They slowly died due to no business or joined the Ola Uber bandwagon. Customers shifted to Ola Uber as it was very convenient, book a cab from comfort of your home or Office and cab will be at your door steps in less than 10 Mins.

Now let’s see what went wrong in all this:

  1. Many people under the influence of other drivers joined Ola and Uber even leaving their Jobs for extra money and independence. But once they started pushing down driver income what happened was Loans, Cabs, expenses all started creating issues for drivers & in this trouble COVID hit.
  2. Due this autocratic behaviour of both, post COVID no major drivers joined them back.
  3. Customers were already facing issues as now the cabs were not all clean, drivers were not all civilised, ACs were not working. Due to low income only bad cabs and bad drivers remained with Ola & Uber.
  4. Now since Ola Uber had less drivers and for customers there was no major option demand was high – They could not focus on quality of cabs. Quality went spiralling down.
  5. Drivers used to cancel rides / ask for cash / just did not turn up. Especially in North and South India.
  6. This also hit the reliability of these cabs & customers started searching for alternatives. Price was still not an issue but reliability and service was becoming a pain.

In this some smart people started new ventures whether it is all electric taxis like BLU / GrEL / iNDrive etc, or some call centre kind of services like SAVAARI / Carbazar / BroomBoom etc. providing reliable and clean experience.

 These above options are helpful for preplanned activities. As far as instant cab bookings are concerned the piece of convenience is still on OLA Uber side. But customers are now smart and they are picking and choosing service providers.

So, what could have these Ride Hailing platforms done better, I suppose:

  1. This business depends on both the consumer and cab drivers. So, to sustain they should find a Win-Win solution. They need to be customer centric while having a strong eye to vehicle owners’ profitability. A transparent charging mechanism could be a great start.
  2. As platform fees – they should charge fixed fees per trip to vehicle owners. To monetize they can go with slab wise incentive on monthly revenue generated by Cab owners.
  3. They need to make cab drivers accountable for cancelling the rides and also take that ownership. It cant happen that you take 25~30% of the charges and 0% of accountability.
  4. Focus should be on Cabs Quality, cleanliness, safety, driver etiquettes, availability & no cancellations. Customers need a reliable solution and this should take care of that.

So as a wrap up following seem to be primary reasons why I think Ola Uber are having a tough time:

  1. Unreliable & Unclean cabs deteriorating the overall experience.
  2. Autocratic behaviour and monopolistic push towards drivers.
  3. Utter negligence to the Quality.
  4. Transparent pricing, better quality of cars and service could turn the tables back in there favour

If you feel there could be more ways or ideas that could make this better for us do feel free to share your views or ideas in comment box below. Also if you have any suggestions / comments do share..

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