Times of conventional transport is over. Cabs are the new trend.

Ekta Jain, INN/Chennai, @infodeaofficial

Over the last few years, our lives have become much easier than what it was a decade ago. Living in the era of modern technology and developments where the world is progressing like never before in all fields like medicine, transport, health, food, etc, there is a lot more hard work and efforts put in than what you can imagine.  What we see is just the outcome that makes life easier and convenient. You have apps for almost everything you can think of, be it booking cabs, ordering food from restaurants, grocery stores, making appointment with doctors, lifestyle apps, shopping apps, money transfer apps, movies, books, etc. you have everything on your phone unlike before where you had to go out to get any of the above things.

One of the increasingly growing sector in our country is transport which has taken a leap with the development of online transport services. These services offer a variety of options like different kinds of cars according to your choice, vans, auto and transport services for food and groceries. The apps with most features are cab services like OlaCabs and Uber-like drop location, pick up locations, type of car, choose according to your location, sharing vehicles, autos, rentals, multiple stops vehicle, outstation and emergency press button.   

The most popular cab service in India is OlaCabs. It was started by two IIT graduates in Dec 2010. Its main aim was to make people book cabs at a very short notice in their apps which tracks your location and suggests the vehicle closest to your location. Ola partners with a number of taxi drivers and the owners. Ola has users in over 110 cities and nearly 10 lakh drivers-partners.

The process of starting Ola began in 2008 by Bhavish and Ankit Bhati, two B. tech computer science graduates. Bhavish saw the potential that a cab booking service could have and believed that for a successful business, one must have a scalable model upon which the business runs. They got their first investment from Snapdeal founder Kunal Bahl, Rehan Yar, and Anupam Mittal.

The design and vision were done by Usha Loutongbam and Bhavish was the product manager. The developers who converted the ideas into reality were Ajinkya Potdar for android and Kushal Bokadey for iOS. The iOS was later taken over by Atul Manwar and android by Ankit Kumar. The main focus of the app was to constantly improve the user experience. Ola has been expanding its range of services rapidly by offering ride options from budget to luxury, and most recently in-cab entertainment.

OlaCabs is currently estimated at 7000 crores. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13%. Ola has raised a total of 2000 crores in 16 funding rounds from 26 investors. Their current valuation is between 3800- 4300 crores. It is the third highest valued consumer internet company in India.

There are many safety concerns during Ola and Uber rides like women safety, robbery, and even kidnapping. But their many safety measures have been taken by the government and the app developers like providing SOS, sharing your ride details to any contacts, emergency, and many other things.

SOS is a facility in which they can show your location to the person who you have chosen so that in an emergency situation you just have to click and they will get the necessary details.

There are many other new schemes that are put forward for our safety. These new schemes are not always for safety but also for comfort as it started the had only cabs but now they have a new scheme like Uber eats, food panda in Ola, etc.., the app designers make sure that the customer needs is fulfilled beefier anything else. The movement we think that there is something we could use technology for there is a new app.

The details that they get are very transparent to everyone now, they do not hide anything. The best quality about all these apps is that they have that they are designed in a way that it is transparent which is why people using these apps are all over India. This is very safe during the night times when compared to other transport like buses or trains because if our location is not proper also the car’s location is always available with Ola and Uber’s main branch they can always contact them in case of any doubts.