NEW DELHI: Mobility is being reimagined with Indians hesitating to own their personal vehicles thanks to bumper-to-bumper traffic, poor road conditions, parking challenges and surging fuel costs.
These have led to several companies bolstering their offerings in the alternative mobility space. With over 25 million customers, Rapido, for instance, is pushing its bike taxi platforms.
“India has a pool of underutilized two-wheelers that have an empty pillion. We envisaged a platform to fill up that pillion seats while providing an income generation opportunity to the drivers,” said Aravind Sanka, co-founder, Rapido. “We firmly believe that India is at the cusp of a paradigm shift towards ride-sharing as we usher in a new era of sustainable mobility.”
Similarly, BluSmart, a startup working in the field of sustainable mobility operates electric vehicle cabs, which the company claims, has already avoided 2650+ tonnes of CO2 emissions, with over 40 million clean kilometers of travel.
“Sustainability is the need of the hour, and ride-hailing platforms are helping India propel towards a cleaner future. Taking this a notch above, we launched an exclusive EV ride-sharing platform to accelerate the rate of adoption of green energy,” said Punit K Goyal, co-founder, BluSmart.
Other startups such as Avis and Zoomcar are leveraging technology, too, to provide doorstep mobility services.
“The travel and tourism industries are seeing growth like never before. According to statistics, Southeast Asia and Asian countries including Japan, China, and India are expected to grow significantly over the forecast period,” said Greg Moran, co-founder & CEO at Zoomcar.
“The current economic situation and the robust growth expected in all Asian countries have created a wave of interest in travel. The concept of tourism is intrinsically associated with mobility and being an industry first, Zoomcar’s unique car sharing marketplace has witnessed exceptional growth in the number of hosts using our platform, and can expect this to grow even more as more car owners understand the economic benefits of hosting on Zoomcar,” he added.
Sunil Gupta, MD & CEO, Avis India, said, “We are increasingly seeing a new generation of consumers who prefer not to own a vehicle. This may be for several reasons such as not wanting to make a long-standing financial commitment and own a depreciating asset, or wanting to avoid additional vehicular congestion and environmental damage. Alternatively, some prefer to own small cars with the knowledge that they will need a larger vehicle at some point in the future, such as a road trip. Renting a car is seen as a viable option, particularly for the younger generation.”
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