[Reinhard]

Present & Future of Car/Bike Pooling in a world with COVID-19

Carpooling / bike-pooling has been a very useful means of transport for many folks over the last few years. Helped by boom in mobile internet, very user friendly apple/android application platforms & loads of readily available api service providers, we have seen an amazing confluence of transportation & technology right at our fingertips. Modern app based carpooling services have had certain benefits that have been unchallenged -

1. Verified users with Organizational details giving better sense of security.
2. Far lower cost per ride compared to cab aggregators that are the primary alternative.
3. Comfortable rides with people from similar work profiles.
4. Punctuality & convenience compared to overcrowded & unreliable public bus services.
5. Time & location flexibility compared to employer provided bus / cab services.
6. Economical transport & monitory savings (even extra income!) for car owners offering rides.
7. That angel ring over the head feeling of having helped in reduction of CO2, CO, NOx emissions for the greater good.

I myself have used the convenient option of car-pooling for office travel plenty times. I have offered rides to fellow city mates and avoided thousands of KGs of CO2 emissions (as per carpooling app's calculations and reports for my riding records).

Especially in metro cities like Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru and so on - where corporate offices/IT companies & overall white collar workforce are concentrated - these car/bike pooling apps have been very popular so far. Ridership has been consistently on the rise. And its not different in other cities in India or anywhere else in the world more or less. Carpool has been a hit in the western world as well & used by people in large numbers from even before we started accepting it.

QuickRide & sRide are 2 of the most popular bike/carpooling apps used in my part of the world. There are folks very loyal to either of them and some who are active on both & compare offerings real time before picking a ride option every time. Between these two - the apps surely are capable of taking out at least half a million cars from the road on a busy work day - during the peak hours. That is a significant contribution to reducing pollution, traffic in the already choked cities!

Quick Ride

sRide

Pooling Service Providers -

These smallish app driven startups have seen their ridership grow multi-fold in a short span. Simplicity has been the key to their business model & success story so far from what I have seen by my layman's eyes.

1. A simple revenue model based on portion of each ride's "fare" going towards the app maker's kitty as a very nominal and worthy service fees.
2. Offerings like prepaid ride vouchers for bulk money in the kitty etc.
3. More the riders - more the revenue for the app service provider.
4. With more user base - more the chances of revenue recognition via facilities like Google ad sense as well.

While being all of the above - these apps are very importantly JOB PROVIDERS. Afterall these are start-ups that employ sharp minds in the IT and ITES arena with direct and indirect job opportunities. From what I have seen, these 2 and other similar apps were hiring bright talent regularly over last year reflecting on the excellent growth that they were enjoying over last 2-4 years.

Now What?

Come December 2019, the world had a very unwanted Christmas gift in the form of the news of COVID-19 outbreak in China. Quite rapidly it conquered the world & we here in India are under nationwide lock-down already since more than a month with cases still on the rise. Things are not different all over the world either. What happens to the carpoolers, the app providers then in this new world?

Pooling Bike/Car Owners -

What do you do now as an owner of a bike / car who used to regularly offer rides to fellow riders on a daily basis?

1. Will you be unfazed and restart carpooling as soon as lock-down is lifted?
2. Will you wait for a few months of normalcy before opening the doors again?
3. Or now social distancing takes priority permanently & you won't look at pooling with your vehicle for foreseeable future?

Pooling Bike/Car Riders -

You used to rely on bike/car pooling as your primary daily office commute means since months or years. You don't remember when you rode an office bus for god's sake.

1. Will you be open to start pooling post lock-down with your regular trusted ride providers?
2. Will you wait for normalcy to restore over next few months to restart pooling? But how to be sure that its normalcy after-all?
3. You are done - no more shared transport. I'm buying a 2/4 wheeler or starting to take out that dusty car in my parking that I was lazy to drive all these days!

Pooling App/Service Provider -

This is the keystone of the pooling architecture & probably the one that will take the hardest hit from the COVID-19 pandemic among the constituents of a pooling machine.

1. How do you be sure that things are normal & ensure it won't look insensitive to start promoting pooling again?
2. With riders apprehensive about pooling & conscious about social distancing, how do you get the much needed revenue?
3. How to sustain the business model without the same revenue generation that you had so far & lack of a proper outlook for at least a couple of quarters ahead?
4. What about the workforce? Will they be at risk? should they already be starting to look for other opportunities on priority? They might be the first ones to take a hit!

I feel its tough and unpredictable times ahead for the concept of car/bike pooling, the start-ups that provide these services & the people in this industry. What's your take on this niche blended area of transport & technology?

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[scopriobharath]

Maybe be we can restrict to one passenger on the left side back seat in case of a 5 seater and one additional person in the third row in case of 7 seater, that too with the compulsion of using hand sanitizer upon entry and usage of masks for the entire ride duration.

[GTO]

Neat thread idea . Personally, forget pooling or taking an Uber, I'm not even riding with friends in the same car for a long time to come. Who knows who has been where and met with whom. Going to hang out exclusively with my family for a long time to come.

[libranof1987]

The corona situation is going to have devastating effects on the hospitality/ transportation sector. There's going to be quite some paranoia traveling with unknown/non-family members and staying at hotels. I've done car pooling to office a fair bit and on rare occasions Pune-Mumbai, mainly as it helps reduce the no. of cars on the road. Given their poor algorithm, I never did Uber/Ola pool.

While I stuck to only a couple of people to travel along with, there's absolutely no way I'm doing that, maybe for the foreseeable future. Since my intention to car pool was not driven by money, I'm perfectly fine driving my car, alone, everywhere. More importantly, working remotely is going to increase across the board. Not as much as the rumored 75% that TCS is saying but definitely more than what happens currently.

I'm curious how startups like QuickRide are going to cope up with this. Given the thin margins they work on, I doubt they're going to come out of this alive and healthy.

Originally Posted by scopriobharath

Maybe be we can restrict to one passenger on the left side back seat in case of a 5 seater and one additional person in the third row in case of 7 seater

One sneeze, even if not caused by cold, is going to cause a nervous breakdown.

[KL01toKA03]

Looks like I am the first person to vote for the first option (I will start pooling immediately after lock-down lifts). Before explaining further, I would like to state that I use taxis/public transportation very rarely.

In a post-lockdown world, if I had to travel in a taxi, or if I had to get into a crowded bus, my behavior would be the same as before the lockdown. If the vehicle was crowded beyond the point of providing a comfortable journey, I would not board that vehicle. In other words, my decision would not be based on the fear of getting infected.

Reasons:

1. Even in a non-shared taxi, there is a driver who would be in close proximity of multiple passengers each day.

2. I think it is time to end the lockdown for low risk sections and keep the vulnerable sections (old people or people with life threatening diseases) under stricter quarantine. The vulnerable people should follow a distance with people even within their own homes. I think it is not correct to deprive people of their livelihoods (and drive them to ending their lives) to protect people who are at risk.

[boniver]

Given the distance I normally travel on a daily basis, I absolutely need to carpool with my friends like I usually do, or take trains and buses. I understand the perils of the same, but there's no way I can afford the fuel bills that I'll incur if I start driving everyday.

[BoneCollector]

My city has none of the car or bike pooling system or for the matter, any cab service like Ola or Uber. Anyone booking a cab means booking a private vehicle of some contact or some agency. Mostly they're private vehicles used as cabs here except in Patna. So forget about car pooling, even cabs will be a strict no no for my family. I've always insisted on my own vehicle for pick up or drop for my immediate family to airport or anywhere else, preferring my own car to anything else. Now with this COVID19 situation, I'll stick to this forever. I'm even convincing my parents to take outstation trip to Gurgaon in car with liberal stops as required. They can take the flights any time with a pickup from airport which is almost always done. But I would like them to avoid the public places as much as possible. Moreover, I will not be taking anyone else in my car other than immediate family as rightly pointed out be GTO.

[varman742]

Voted for Option 2. I use car pool extensively to travel to work. We are four of us and take our car on each day in rotation. Once the lock down is lifted, Covid-19 will certainly impact our car pooling for the initial months. However once normalcy is returned (i.e. once vaccine or treatment is available), I am open to think of carpool again within our known group. For unknowns, I shall still be staying away from carpool for a long time.

Once we have a vaccine, I don't see a reason for not using car pooling as before. In a way, once we are out of homes, the risk will exist at many places in addition to car pools.

[Striker]

Voted for option 3. Although I travel to work alone in my own car, my wife depends on carpooling and share rides to get to her workplace which is about 20 kms from where we live. If the company doesn't provide a safe individual transport option, only other alternative is to ride a two-wheeler alone the entire distance.

[Aafaq]

This Covid-19 is not going to vanish any time soon, so it will be better to maintain social distancing even after the lockdown is over. As of now this is the most important measure we can take to avoid its spread.

Voted for option 3.

[Nilesh5417]

Voted for time will tell....if the vaccine does come out in October or this year, maybe life goes back a bit to how it was earlier.

[turbospooler]

Man! This thread title hurts.
I am a beneficiary of regular, weekly car pooling rides from Pune to Mumbai. I used an app called BlaBlaCar and have had very few negative incidents. This was mainly because the gentry who travel and post rides between these cities are very good professionals themselves.
But, the major con of being a professional is that you travel internationally or domestically for different assignments. I have done that in the past and many of the people I used to travel with have been doing it a lot as well.
So, because of the social distancing, my trust in anyone and everyone around me has reduced significantly and maybe I am being paranoid about it thinking anyone can carry this disease.

I used to commute regularly via Autos, Uber and Local. Had even deferred my decision to buy a new 4 wheeler.
Now, I am thinking of biting the bullet and getting it and avoiding carpooling completely.

[Brishti]

Once vaccinated then will ride btw no vaccine is 100% but one has to draw the line somewhere.

[Miyata]

Voted for "Not sure, time will tell"

I've read historical references to older practice of Indian villages where anyone visiting "foreign places" was treated as an outcast. Foreign travel was vehemently discouraged.

This apparently was mainly to the fear that folks travelling around will bring in a new disease leading to wiping out of the entire village population!

In the ongoing covid crisis, there was news of some villages shutting out anyone coming in from the "outside!"

For each person now, their home(s) and their car(s) will likely come to represent their "village" for a while at least. Travelers might be discouraged from getting too close or in at least for a little while longer! More so for those that have elderly/infants/ or folks with any pre-existing illness at home.

Normalcy is sure to return soon, but I doubt anyone can forecast when that "soon" is likely to be. Not until we've got some handle on this virus - treatment plans / vaccinations / etc. Even so, the idea of sterilization / disinfecting will stay on.