Uber has quietly been testing a versatile pricing service in additional than a dozen cities in India, a transfer that might assist it develop its shopper base within the South Asian nation and put stress on rival ride-hailing platforms, together with Ola and inDrive.
The versatile pricing service, known as Uber Flex, was began in India in October final yr and has since expanded to greater than 12 cities, together with Aurangabad, Ajmer, Bareilly, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Gwalior, Indore, Jodhpur and Surat, amongst others, TechCrunch has completely realized. Uber confirmed that the versatile pricing service has expanded.
“We are piloting this feature in some of the Tier 2 and 3 markets in India currently,” an Uber spokesperson mentioned in an emailed response to TechCrunch.
The service, which was initially rolled out for cabs and later expanded to auto-rickshaw rides, lets commuters bid a specific fare for his or her journey. That’s totally different from Uber’s customary dynamic pricing mannequin, which strikes up and down relying on provide and demand and site visitors in a specific area.
Uber Flex affords 9 pricing factors — with a default worth chosen — to let riders choose a fare of their selection that will likely be shared with close by drivers. Based mostly on that fare, the drivers can settle for or reject the journey.
Uber’s competitor inDrive, which operates in a variety of Indian cities, permits riders to haggle the fare by manually placing in a specific worth for his or her journey. Nevertheless, many inDrive drivers within the nation have complained about passengers providing them too low costs for his or her rides. inDrive has not but addressed the driving force concern over riders fiercely bargaining their fare and has as a substitute touted that its “unique approach ensures that drivers are fairly compensated while passengers enjoy an affordable yet high-quality ride-hailing experience.”
“By offering drivers the option to make counterbids to passengers’ prices, inDrive fosters an option for the driver to increase the price if he feels to do so,” inDrive APAC director Roman Ermoshin advised TechCrunch whereas answering how inDrive is addressing driver considerations of not being reasonably compensated.
“Drivers are often dissatisfied with the pricing in the ride-hailing platforms, as they yearn for fair compensation for their services. With a focus on fairness and transparency, inDrive showcases a recommended price in the app, which is usually slightly lower than in the other apps, and this is made possible by inDrive’s significantly lower fees for drivers (roughly twice as low as the competition, so the driver earns the same or more as with the higher prices in the other apps).”
Uber is making an attempt to unravel the too-low fare downside confronted by some inDrive drivers by not permitting passengers to set a particular fare manually within the flex-pricing mode. It additionally locations a cap on the bottom fare.
The service is accessible for inexpensive Uber Go rides and Intercity cabs in some cities, whereas in some, it’s even provided for Premier cabs and auto-rickshaw rides. Commuters pays their fare in money or by way of digital cost. Furthermore, whereas Uber’s flex pricing mannequin is accessible for numerous modes, the raid-hailing large is just not making use of it to all modes in a single metropolis.
Uber is testing Flex in different markets together with Lebanon, Kenya and Latin America. TechCrunch realized that the corporate was additionally seeking to check the brand new service mannequin quickly in metro cities in India, together with Delhi and Mumbai.
Along with Uber Flex, the San Francisco-headquartered firm is testing totally different companies in India to cater to the native demand. These embrace Uber Taxis in Mumbai, which affords conventional taxi drivers as an choice within the metropolis, and a Wait & Save mannequin in cities together with Mumbai, Guwahati and Chandigarh to let riders overcome surge pricing and pre-book a taxi when out there at a less expensive fare.
India’s app-based cab market has expanded not too long ago, with new gamers coming into its city transportation area in the previous couple of months. Corporations together with BluSmart and Evera supply electrical taxis, whereas Ola, Uber and inDrive have onboarded a lot of gasoline cabs. Final yr, bike taxi startup Rapido additionally began providing its cab service within the nation to develop its revenues and attain new clients.
Nonetheless, Indian cab drivers — no matter the platform they work on — battle on account of comparatively low compensation and lack of security. There isn’t any readability for a lot of on whether or not they’ll stay within the enterprise as soon as their current autos turn into out of date.