Building A Safe And Affordable Commute System In India

Pavan Guntupalli Feb 28, 2021

The outbreak of the pandemic last year and the lockdown in the subsequent months affected the mobility in the country to a large extent. Public transport and commuting came to a standstill with everyone adjusting to the ‘new normal’. 2021 however, brings with it, a ray of new hope. With the good news of the vaccine against the pandemic successfully being administered phase-wise, people are venturing out of their homes, albeit cautiously, to un-pause their lives.

But there still continues to be a hesitancy among commuters to travel by public transport like buses and trains, with the kind of exposure and safety measures that can be maintained. Commuting by public transport has been almost shunned, leading to increase of personal vehicle and single occupancy use on roads.

In between all this nestles the humble shared mobility segment that is gaining popularity due to its affordability and safety. India’s Metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, etc. are almost always featured in the ‘top congested cities in the world’ lists, which demands a shift to a sustained shared mobility model to be activated in the urban counterparts. The rural cities and outskirt towns also witness a lack of penetration of private commute options and inaccessibility to regular public commute options, making it difficult to travel to and fro to the work.

With most of the workforce returning to their offices in a phased manner, people that used public transport for regular commute are looking for safer and affordable alternatives to get around to places. The blue-collar workers travelling from nearby villages to cities for work will also need affordable transportation options that are available at regular intervals.

This has created a demand for mobility service providers to offer safe alternatives by building precautionary processes and establishing usage of technology to protect its customers. Bike Taxis with their deep reach and adaptive model are proving to be the most affordable, accessible, and safe option.

Bike Taxi landscape and challenges to build a successful sustainable model

India is home to one of the world’s largest 2W owners, that ply on the road with the pillion seats empty. With this observation in mind, bike taxis became a solution to not only provide the last mile connectivity option to the commuters but the utilization of the empty pillion seats as a mode to generate employment opportunity.

From an affordability point of view, bike taxis have become the answer as a cost-effective solution to last-mile connectivity gaps across cities in India. On average, a bike taxi ride costs INR 60-70, whereas a cab ride costs INR 200 for the same distance, offering commuters a convenient, accessible, and affordable option. In certain cases, it is even more economical or equal to public transport. Allowing bikes to ply as taxis is also generating employment opportunities and supporting livelihoods. Allowing the use of bikes as taxis can therefore not only contribute to mobility but also boost the earnings of delivery executives as another source of income.

While our country has a vibrant network of public transport which includes buses, metros, local trains, often the connections to final destinations are sketchy and the commute often gets lengthy from the home to these points of transit. These gaps make public transport unviable for shorter journeys and open up markets for micro-mobility in India. First and last-mile provisions have for a long time been under catered for.

However, the biggest challenge to micro-mobility including bike-sharing and scooter-sharing schemes in India is lack of legal clarity regarding the operations. There is an urgent need to address the regulations regarding bike taxis to promote widespread adoption of bike taxis.

A recent Praxis Global Report and a report by Zinnov-TiE Delhi NCR on shared mobility suggest that the recovery of shared mobility will see an uptake in the months to come and 2W shared services are witnessing a faster recovery in comparison to 4W shared services. Despite the updates to Motor Vehicle Act to define shared mobility services, bike taxis as a recognized mode of transport still lack a well-defined framework. The report by Praxis Global denotes, regulatory challenges and the cumbersome process of getting a commercial license for private two-wheelers have become hurdles to enable bike taxis as a preferred mode of commute in the country.

Despite this, a wave of change is gradually coming forth, and states like Telangana, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand are working towards building a robust framework for bike taxis. In Uttarakhand, it is believed that bike taxis can create over 20,000 jobs and the framework is already underway.

Leveraging Technology

India is recognized as a world leader in technological development and innovation and has a high penetration of data-supported technologies. High penetration of smartphones and better internet connectivity has boosted the adoption of shared mobility solutions and services. As per a report by Niti Aayog in 2018, data can be a key enabler in a shift to shared mobility and multimodal integration.

Analyzing data at hand is what helped us transform our services and to pivot our focus to accelerate our logistics business when bike taxi services were impacted, during the nationwide lockdown. The data and feedback from customers continuously help companies in upgrading the service to customize as per customers’ preferences. For example, the introduction of booking a vehicle through language preferred by customers or localization of icons that are recognized by the elderly, are some ways how we enhanced the user experience through data analysis.

Adopting cloud technologies and building a robust infrastructure will provide the business a strong foundation to depend on. Cloud adoption also helps in onboarding driver-partners, identifying gaps and improving the safety measures for customers. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobility service providers can now detect if the driver-partner is wearing a mask or if the registered vehicle is in use.

The future of mobility will be increasingly interconnected and rely on shared assets, with a focus to move towards the adoption of electric vehicles. Currently, there aren’t many options for last-mile connectivity that are economical and efficient. Hence, the gap is still wide where bike taxis fit suitably as a viable option and an answer to its growing traffic and safe commute woes.

The demand for bike taxis continues to grow with bike-sharing companies seeing an almost 70% recovery from the pandemic impact in the country. Cities like Delhi and Guwahati saw a 100% recovery in the last year itself, as public commute options like the metro were majorly impacted. Since the services are city agnostic, it looks to be a brighter future for bike taxis than any other shared mode of transport.