Uber Ups Ante Against Ola; Soon To Launch Ride Hailing Service For Buses

Online cab aggregator Uber  is reportedly planning to launch a new service named Uber Everything. It will be a ride-hailing service for buses and mini-vans.

A person close to the development told Mint, “The next big innovation that the company plans to introduce is Uber Pool in buses and mini-vans.”

Earlier this month, Uber announced that India is number two (after the US) in the number of rides taken.

According to an official statement, Uber is currently doing 5.5 Mn rides per week, with around 5 Mn monthly active riders, and 2.5 Mn weekly active riders in India. This has led to $60 Mn gross revenues per month, at the same time clocking $30 Mn losses.

Uber has come up with a number of new offerings to up the ante against its local rivals. From a tech perspective, Uber introduced UberPOOL which allows multiple riders travelling in the same direction to share the same care and pay a much lower fare much before Ola did. It recently launched the feature to book a cab on Uber without the app too. In September 2016, Uber launched a trip scheduling service, to book a cab in advance.

In September 2015, Ola launched Ola Shuttle – a service to offer shuttle bus service to urban commuters. However in December 2015, Shuttl and Ola’s Shuttle, were suspended to operate in Gurugram.

According to the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) in Gurugram, these services have been stopped as they don’t fall under the ambit of the Haryana Contract Carriage Permit Act 1988, 1993, 2001, 2004, and 2013.

The move may likely pose a challenge for Uber as well as it may lock horns with local administrations that regulate private and state-owned bus services.

The development was reported by Mint.