[jagzrk]

I've voted primarily Uber mainly because I fire up this app first to look for cabs. But, ultimately, I'll choose the one with lower estimated cost to reach my destination. Nowadays, that's turning out to be Ola.

To put it briefly, for me in Pune, Uber almost always has an overall better experience, negligible rate of denial (yes, this is happening with cab providers also!) but significantly more pricier and UberPOOL almost never available. Ola's shared rides turn out to be a steal compared to whatever's available on Uber, if they do not cancel that is.

[Lobogris]

I have only used Uber. I use if quite frequently. In the early days, I tried Ola but was never able to get a ride. One strange thing I have noticed is that the Uber app has now grown to over 200 Mb on my phone. This is huge.

Originally Posted by sinharishi

It was always Uber for me, but after shifting to Indirapuram, Ghaziabad I have stopped using Uber for the following reasons:

• Most of the cabbies refuse to travel to Indirapuram from Delhi, they will tell me to cancel the booking and disconnect the call. Two weeks back we were without our car and were returning home late night, had to cancel/make the driver cancel 5 bookings as everyone refused to take us home leaving me and my parents stranded at 1 AM.
  
• I have to pay 100/- as MCD Toll Tax every time when I enter/exit Delhi. From 20th March Delhi Airport has levied a surcharge for 150/- for all commercial vehicles coming to the Airport's T1/T3 terminal to pick up passengers. It is no more a VFM proposition.

Why do you disclose the destination beforehand? If they call, you can say East Delhi (eg. near Akshardham) and then let them see that it is Indirapuram once they arrive. You can pretend you didn't know the exact location. Hopefully they won't leave once they have taken the trouble of getting to you.

Regarding the airport charge, you can take the Airport Express metro to CP. It costs around Rs 50 and takes just a few minutes. Then you can get a much cheaper ride to Indirapuram and can save the airport pickup charges. You can also take the Airport Express to Dhaula Kuan if that works better depending on traffic and pricing. On my recent arrival at IGIA, I found Uber charging nearly 2k from the airport due to high demand but only 600 from CP. So I jumped on the Airport Express and saved money while avoiding traffic.

[ksakotai]

I voted Primarily Uber. Started off with Ola. But started experiencing severe delays, driver boorishness, and frequent "no change saar" issues.

Uber I found was more professional, cars relatively cleaner, and barring the occasional delay more availability of cars. Until sometime ago the same driver used to have both Ola and Uber phones. But that has reduced to almost a trickle. I find that Uber has better policies as far as driver behavior is concerned.

Krishnan

[sumeet007]

Primarily use Uber, due to reasons listed by most in preceding posts. Apparently Uber is strict about registering cars not older than 2 or 3 years, hence it is rare to get a old Uber car.

While using pool, Uber is far better as their algorithms are built to book riders in the near vicinity of the car and in my experience it has been a rare occasion when a long detour had to be taken.

It is when more people opt for pool, then the real benefit (reducing carbon foot print, vehicle congestion etc), is achieved, as one car can serve the needs of 3 or more riders in a single trip. Obviously it is also lighter on the pocket, but one does need to plan to start earlier or avoid it when time is short.

Some one mentioned earlier likening it to a ponzi scheme.
I agree completely. The whole aggregator model on which it is based runs successfully where ever it is introduced (at least certainly in India), due to the fact that both the rider and driver are heavily subsidised at present. Most often, at least in Bangalore the fares of Uber (after discounting), are about 15% higher than autos for single rider and often cheaper for a pool.
If Uber and Ola were to overnight remove the subsidy for both, the business will simply collapse. Riders would be loathe to pay twice or more the auto fare, while drivers will find the non subsidised rides entirely unviable. This situation has already partially come true with few strikes by both Ola and Uber drivers and many actually say they are trapped with huge loans they took looking at quick bucks made previously by their friends and now are unable to pay the instalments and banks have seized many such cars. Many have actually gone back to company or travel rental business.

The entire valuation of these companies is based on number of cars they aggregate and number of rides completed (in millions), cities expanded etc.
Actual profitability or viability without subsidy is not primarily a consideration. Assumption is that as the market matures people will be willing to pay no matter what the actual cost is.

[MadiMaama]

I have voted for primarily Uber. I find that Uber drivers usually have very well maintained cars and the drivers are quite friendly too. In case, there are any errant drivers, Uber is quite strict in their dealing with such drivers.
I use Ola only in Vijayawada where Uber is yet to arrive.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by GTO

Am surprised that almost 80% of BHPians prefer Uber! Ola is apparently the bigger player, so was expecting it to have a slight edge in this poll.

The reason is simple and is one of my reasons as well - pricing, to me its hard to digest why OLA charges Rs.90 for a ride that costs Rs.78 in UBER, each time it is 10-15% more and they surge the trips way more than UBER as well.

I'm a fan of American companies, so I try to take UBER as much as possible and there was a time I spent about Rs.12k in a single month last year, had we kept up that same average then my account would've been the most used worldwide (the person who hit that record was also from Bangalore last year and he averaged 4 trips per day). Here are certain good things that the company has done for me :

1) Each time there was a surge charge they refunded as credits within a week.
2) Offers galore and they refunded credits to the tune of Rs.5 or Rs.10 immediately after each trip, almost like if the driver took a turn wrong then he'd be punished.
3) Immediate assistance, it was like I was a premium user to them so they took every violation notice seriously and assured me of strict action against the driver each time.
4) Drivers on their part were mostly nice, though some drivers really knew how to treat a customer (those ranked 4.8+), rest were strictly average though.
5) It felt like heaven and hell difference when compared to the boorish auto-drivers who used to fleece me of the same price of that of a cab and I'd still only get one after 20 attempts, happy to say I've not taken an auto for a year now.

I've only been using the cab services for a year now, but its shocking how UBER has deteriorated within that time, the email support is non-existent today (cancelled), they are responding to fare issues very, very slowly and costs have gone up though not as much as OLA, but heavy pricing/ exploitation/ laggard service if not outright ill-treatment of customers is a given in Indian companies. The only reason OLA is better today in Bangalore is because most of the good UBER drivers jumped ship due to better benefits and bonuses.

[Rudra Sen]

I don't use any when I'm in Bangalore but Ola when I'm in Mumbai and I've experienced good driver and bad driver from them too.

Recently I had taken Ola for an outstation shoot trip (Bangalore to Sri City, AP and back for five days) and that worked out more than 40% cheaper than renting a car from a travel company. My total bill came to 23K and the car was Chevy Enjoy. Due to driver's mistake (or was it the map) there was an additional 250km drive but Ola didn't charge me for that.

Regular cab fare for my usual distance (Worli to Fort) comes to 175/- plus, minus. For Ola Prime/Play I pay on and average 240/- for the same distance. I find this extra amount is OK to pay for a spacious car with AC and WiFi.

[Hayek]

I use Uber almost exclusively. Why? Cleaner cars (even in uber X or Uber Go), better drivers, working rear seat belts - all of which are very important to me. I didn't have the Ola app for a long time - till one morning (at 5 am) when there were no Ubers around for an airport trip. Now have both apps and use Ola of Uber is not around (or surging crazily as I can tell from fair estimates)

[pradyblr]

I use uber for trips > 10km and ola auto for trips less than 10km. Ola auto is easy to get and economical in the morning. Evening no auto guy wants to ride ola as they can charge exorbitant rates standing in front of tech parks. It is good when it is available.
The new UI of uber oh it is so bad!

[landcruiser123]

GTO, me and many others have the same reasons for which we voted for Uber-

Originally Posted by GTO

Attachment 1641860
Mine is Uber primarily - it's the first app I fire up when I want to call a cab. Just find the Uber experience to be more polished (software, cars, drivers).

Also, payment with PayTM is very convenient.

My father and I don't recollect when we last opened the Ola app. (We don't use Uber often too )

What differentiates the drivers who drive Uber:

1. In my last 4 rides (and in general) in Bangalore, only once have I had to call just one Uber driver to come to my place. The other three just navigated to my place and I just got into the car. I've to keep calling Ola drivers and guiding them even though I set my pickup location correctly.

2. Uber drivers don't need to be forced to use OTP to start trips as they don't cheat. Don't quote me and start an argument- this is purely from my experience. Like almost any service, I'm sure there are some rotten eggs in the basket- but I'm lucky that I've never encountered them in Bangalore.

3. Most Uber drivers have well maintained cars, however old they are. However I've seen many Ola drivers with badly maintained cars.

EDIT: The only thing I hate about both these cab services in Chennai is that they refuse to use navigation. I can't choose between the two in Chennai as Uber isn't hassle free.

[One:1]

Predominantly use uber nowadays. Used to use OLA for quite a while, however everyone i know suggested me to switch to uber. After OLA left a salty taste in my mouth with delayed pickups, old run down indica's with odo's over 300,000kms, driver cancellations and a case of an ola auto guy driving drunk, i had enough and made the switch to Uber. Wisest decision ever made. I could see why everyone had asked me to switch. Till date I'm very pleased with Uber and won't be going back to OLA.

[feluda86]

I voted 'Primarily Uber'.

In Pune I have always found the service rendered by Uber to be better. Uber drivers are well informed about directions, more courteous, cleaner cars and they offer better discounts. Ola, however, is convenient for short trips due to their fleet of auto-rickshaws and 'kaali-peeli' taxis.

[ashwin49]

Uber all the way. Reasons:

1) The interface does not look like something which was made by a 10 year old, ola app on the other hand is often buggy and quirky
2) Drivers are indeed better and I like the rating system in uber & Cars also seem better managed.
3) Extremely responsive customer service, refunds are provided in minutes sometimes
4) Works all over the world
5) Does not seem like some jugaad operation and feels super professional compared to ola

[carwatcher]

I am in Goa and get to use App whenever I am in Mumbai or Jaipur (my Native). The problem with Uber which many of you would be aware that they are trigger happy in deleting the user accounts. My account was deleted due to my mobile being dual SIM. On searching the web, came to know that now I have to write to them "requesting" to unblock my account which I haven't done as my usage of Taxi App is very less.

Voted for Ola.

[JBIBS]

UBER: Lot cheaper compared to OLA. Atleast in Hyderabad. This matters a lot to me as a daily commuter.

Cons: Cancelation charges are directly on customer, be it for any reason

OLA: Cancelation is balanced. In favor of customer in case of a genuine reason

Cons: Costlier

Verdict: UBER for me, any day, anytime