Ola Takes on Uber With Bike Taxi, Now Available in Over 150 Cities

The cab-aggregator is looking to expand its base for bike taxis, while Uber has limited its service to few cities.

Bike taxis help you commute from home/office to nearest metro station. 

(Photo: Ola altered by The Quint)

With last mile connectivity being a problem for commuters in the country, Ola is expanding its base for bike taxi services, with over 150 cities added to its availability list.

Ola competes with its cab aggregator rival Uber in this segment as well. However, the latter only caters to over 11 cities in the country. Ola is looking to expand its availability to even more cities in the next 12 months, as informed in a company statement on Thursday.

Bike taxis are proving to be a cost-effective alternative to cab sharing, as well as autorickshaws in these regions. In addition to Ola and Uber, you have startups like Baxi, Rapido and Vogo among others also catering to services in the segment.

These services have also come across as employment opportunities for people on a part-time basis. We’ve met people who have bike-riding partnerships with these brands, while working for an IT company or any other sector.

This has enabled them to earn basic money, which tends to help with house chore expenses, as one of the bike-riding partners candidly explained to us few months back.

Bikes are extremely popular in India with two-wheelers constituting more than 50 percent of the vehicles plying on the roads in the country. But safety is of utmost concern, which is why most states have been apprehensive of letting these bike taxis operate.

Delhi, in particular has been against these services, not offering commercial licences (running on yellow plate), which has not been a problem for states like Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to date. Hopefully, Ola can manage its service expansion with a constant check on the quality of riders on the road, and also making sure bike-related mishaps are kept to a minimum.