BlaBla car-a community-based travel network claims to have enabled over 90 million members to share a ride across 22 markets. Shared mobility which began in the 1940s in Switzerland has now become an essential part of our everyday lives. If you look around, micro-mobility options like Yulu, Bounce and Rapido have been helping delivery persons to quickly deliver the orders on time at a much lesser cost without any hassle.
According to Frost & Sullivan, the Indian shared mobility industry is expected to witness nearly four-fold growth with revenues of $42.85 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 25.3%.
As we move into the experience economy, customer experience will play a vital role in retaining customers and especially in acquiring the new segment-Gen Z. Zoomers or Gen Z are the most advanced, tech-savvy audience who rely on technology and want a great digital experience to stay loyal to their favorite brands. They are quick to express on social media what they experience and feel about- be it good or bad. Right after the offices re-opened a few months ago, Uber and Ola users complained on social media about rides getting canceled. Uber started allowing drivers to see drop locations before accepting the rides just to reduce the cancellation chances.
Keeping in mind the evolving customer preferences and expectations, companies are constantly working on redefining customer experience in shared mobility. Chalo is a mobility startup that offers live bus tracking and a live passenger indicator and also shows how crowded the bus is in real-time. Quick Ride offers people carpooling along with a Taxi/Cab app for local, airport, and outstation travels. This points out that enhancing customer experience has become a significant factor for shared mobility organizations to retain their customers. And it seems that the businesses operating in this ecosystem have a myriad of possibilities to grow. Here’s why:
- Increase in demand for shared mobility in Remote Areas: Pandemic has brought in work-from-home culture worldwide. People who migrated to their home towns in tier 2 and 3 cities want shared mobility options to commute. In the past two years, digital literacy in rural areas has gone up. A McKinsey report estimated that India will have 650-700 million smartphones as the number of internet users will cross 800 million by 2023. This will surely create more demand for shared vehicle services in remote areas.
- Increase in Traffic Congestion: As the offices have reopened, so has the traffic congestion on roads. Owing to increasing disposable income, lack of public transport infrastructure, and the demand-supply gap, India’s shared mobility sector is expected to touch nearly 15 crore users by 2025, according to the Redseer report.
EV (Electric Vehicle) ecosystem in India
EV ecosystem which is now in its nascent stage will evolve within the next few years. The government has been promoting the use of EVs across the nation with the goal of achieving 50% vehicle electrification by 2030. Key players like Uber, Ola, and Vogo are planning to switch to electric vehicles. There’s already a long queue for Ola bikes amongst customers. The company recently announced to bring Ola electric car on the road by 2023. Yulu is a mobility app to book & track trips, monitor bike health, report bike issues, check personal stats, and win rewards. Mantra Labs built a scalable platform for Yulu, enabling a scalable and easy-to-use app for users to access bike-sharing services. The app helps users to check personal health stats such as calories burnt, distance covered, and time elapsed for quick tracking. It also shows the amount of carbon emissions saved for each trip.
The Future:
We are heading towards an intelligent and connected world where new-age vehicles will be smarter than ever before. Recently, California regulators gave a nod to robotic taxi services to charge passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco. Tesla has been working on building autonomous vehicles for future customers. Whether autonomous cars will be viable on Indian roads or not is difficult to answer right now because of the massive population and infrastructural gap in the country. But this may be possible in the future. As of now, the biggest challenge for companies is figuring out how to make the rider experience seamless, safe, convenient, and economical.
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