UberPool spikes on New Year's eve in India
UberPool, Uber’s ride-sharing option, saw a spike on New Year’s Eve with 37,133 passengers using the option in India. Over 31% of all rides in New Delhi used the UberPool service, compared with 20% in other Indian cities where the feature is offered. The option was launched a few weeks before the Delhi government began the first implementation of its odd-even rule for the restriction of private cars in an effort to lower pollution.
NEW DELHI: As many as 37,133 people in the country used the cab aggregator's trip-sharing feature UberPOOL , or the 'split fare' option, when heading to and from their celebrations.Of them, 11,939 riders ­ 32% ­ were from the pub capital of India ­ Bengaluru, according to Uber , which shared data exclusively with ET on how Indians used its service on the last night of 2016.More than 31% of the overall rides in New Delhi were on UberPOOL compared with 20% in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai, the other cities where this feature is offered.The feature allows two or more people travelling in the same direction to share a ride in one cab and pay a lower fare. It was launched in December 2015, barely a month before the Delhi government implemented the first phase of its odd-even rule, which restricted the plying of private cars from January 1 to 15, 2016, in a bid to curb pollution in the capital."For a country that considered car ownership as a status symbol, it is interesting to note that today consumers are much more open to sharing. The adoption of our service stems from this very behavioural change and we are happy to see that it is already setting in, with many people rethinking buying a car and several more giving up on the idea of buying a second one," said an Uber spokesperson.A Jaipur passenger was Uber's biggest party hopper in India, taking 12 rides through the evening of December 31, followed by a Chandigarh resident who took 10 trips.As many as 6,883 riders got out of their Uber vehicles nine or fewer minutes before midnight, arriving just in time to ring in the New Year. Of them, 1,330 were from New Delhi. In line with the paranoia often associated with being a resident of the capital, of the 1,233 people who used the 'Share Status' feature to let their friends or family track their trip, 293 were from New Delhi. Cab aggregators ran into several rough patches last year, with regulators and governments demanding fair pricing and billing mechanisms. While some of the issues are sorted, others still remain. Uber plans to introduce more features in its app this year."In the coming days, you will witness a host of exciting new features like destination first, shortcuts, calendar integration, people search, as well as a host of on-trip integrations that offer more experiences tailored around rider destinations with other utility-based mobile applications, social media plat forms and news aggregators, amongst others," it said.