[CountMe91]

Just like the earlier government this government is no different. Instead of pulling up its socks and re-drafting new laws, it has issued notice to stop all web based cab services pan India. In cities like Kolkata, where cab hartals are a menace companies like Uber, OLA and Meru were giving them a tough competition to the normal taxis. If you do not have competetion, there is no scope of upgrade/improvement in services. As usual - a very stupid move by the government!

[i74js]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Is it NCT or Delhi city. Ola and Uber connect Gurgaon as well, and I suspect NOIDA and maybe Faridabad may also be on the networks.

If they have an entry tax on commercial vehicles entering Delhi then they cannot force the same rules. Every Time a cab goes from Gurgaon to Delhi it has to pay this tax.

NCT - National Capital Territory i.e. city limits of Delhi / national capital. I understand you wanted to mention NCR - which includes Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida etc.

This rule is applicable to the cabs registered in Delhi for commuting within NCT / capital wherein clean fuel / CNG is required as part of plying permission / permit.

What Uber and Ola are doing is letting cars from neighboring states to come in Delhi and get the passengers. I myself have taken cabs registered in Rajasthan from the New Delhi Railway station through Ola. This doesn't happen when we use Easy / Mega / Meru etc, we always get a proper CNG based car registered in Delhi.

[sdp1975]

New scam: Personal cars masquerading as taxis

During the drive, we found 40 cases of people using personal cars as taxis. All they do is paint their number plates yellow and drive around.

Source : http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga.../45516229.cms?

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by sdp1975

New scam: Personal cars masquerading as taxis

Source : http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga.../45516229.cms?

If you think about it, renting out a personal car is way more beneficial than a yellow board one - no issue of inter state commercial vehicle taxes, all India permit requirements, need of a commercial vehicle DL etc etc. And it's nothing new. Been happening for ages.

But what is surprising is they actually put up yellow boards! With this act, it was only a matter of time before they were pulled up.

Wondering why they switched the other way?

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by rev_rohit

There is a very much ignored culprit "ALCOHOL" hidden behind all the major crimes (not particularly behind this uber case).

Secondly : Punishment itself should be a strong deterrent for the potential criminals. Law enforcement should be strong that no one should take law for granted.

I cannot agree more. In fact the same factor contributes to 90% of the accidents, esp at night.

Originally Posted by noopster

Took Uber for a long ride Mumbai yesterday. 36 km came to Rs 393 only. That is about 11/km. This was UberGo and I got a nice clean air conditioned Indica eV2 petrol/CNG vehicle.

Return was 614 by non AC black and yellow for exactly same route. I couldn't fire up the Uber app because of network issues. Rs 26/km.

Originally Posted by drmohitg

How is Uber able to keep there prices so drastically low compared to the regular black and yellow taxis? Is it just an attempt to accumulate losses in order to break the market or are the regular taxi wallahs fleecing us with such a huge margin ( almost more than double for the same journey).

Dr MohitG noopster answers your query in a different way. Also, their meters are not doctored. They have a better business model, as simple as that. Ola charges about the same. A friend was in Delhi nhd the fare by Yellow-Black to his destination (Delhi airport prepaid) and the return at 3.00am by Meru. Even here the return was cheaper, despite non-AC and AC and at 3:00am, and Meru is more expensive than Uber/Ola.

[poloman]

Business models like this

In the midst of the armed hostage crisis in a Lindt cafe in Sydney’s busy city district, taxi-hailing app Uber, which was earlier charging users in central Sydney a minimum $100 fare as demand exceeded supply, has now gone into damage control mode and is offering free rides out of Sydney's Central Business District.

http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/corpor...is-113133.html
This company can't stay far from controversies any point of time.

[srameshdelhi]

Originally Posted by poloman

Business models like this

http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/corpor...is-113133.html
This company can't stay far from controversies any point of time.

In our country where every public service far outstrip the demand due to population, if this is introduced, Uber, Ola and likes will end up charging much more than any other service and the entire taxi fleet will fall prey to them due to higher revenue.

At the end, for the same service of today, we will end up paying higher than what we are paying today. Developed countries have a knack of making things expensive, in the name of market economy and demand and supply gap.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by poloman

Business models like this

http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/corpor...is-113133.html
This company can't stay far from controversies any point of time.

Exactly!
Transportation service is a 'service' first and then 'business'. So what we need is a 'Service Model' not 'Business model'.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

Exactly!
Transportation service is a 'service' first and then 'business'. So what we need is a 'Service Model' not 'Business model'.

I disagree there. If it is a service and not a business, then the government should own and operate the service at the reasonable rates ignoring the cost/profits. For private players, it is business first and service next. No one is going to compensate for their losses. Neither the government nor the general public is going to repay the loans of an operator who gets into loss because they treated it as a service instead of business. If there is enough government owned/operated transport options available to meet the public demand, we wouldn't see the private players operating at exorbitant rates.

Whenever there is an exorbitant pricing from a private player for an essential service and people have no choice but to use it at the higher rate, it is the failure of the government in ensuring adequate number of essential services are not operated in such a case. If not, public could have always ditched the exorbitantly priced private player and went with the option provided by the government.

It is a different thing to try and wipe out the competition by operating at a loss during the initial period with a model that cannot be sustained in the hope that they can recover these costs once they get the monopoly in that sector.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by zenren

I disagree there. If it is a service and not a business, then the government should own and operate the service at the reasonable rates ignoring the cost/profits. For private players, it is business first and service next. No one is going to compensate for their losses. Neither the government nor the general public is going to repay the loans of an operator who gets into loss because they treated it as a service instead of business. If there is enough government owned/operated transport options available to meet the public demand, we wouldn't see the private players operating at exorbitant rates.

Whenever there is an exorbitant pricing from a private player for an essential service and people have no choice but to use it at the higher rate, it is the failure of the government in ensuring adequate number of essential services are not operated in such a case. If not, public could have always ditched the exorbitantly priced private player and went with the option provided by the government.

Note i said just service, not free public service, so i don't mean just government has to to run it or make losses out of it. One cannot justify their unethical business model (which i think is the case here where they apply surge pricing in times of crisis) in the name of running business. Did the cost of running a taxi suddenly increase because of the hostage crisis to justify higher prices?
There is some corporate responsibility as part of running a business which seems lacking here. Also the context in which i wrote it is from Sydney, which probably has one of the best transport systems in the world, so there is no question of lack of options.
I agree it's still a business, but fleecing customers in times of crisis is not good business. They need to find other means of motivating more drivers, may be pay the drivers on their own instead of making customers pay higher charges. How did they manage to offer free rides when there was backlash? That only comes when you start thinking that it's a service that you are offering to your customers.

It is a different thing to try and wipe out the competition by operating at a loss during the initial period with a model that cannot be sustained in the hope that they can recover these costs once they get the monopoly in that sector.

This is perfectly fine, and is being followed by most of new e-commerce ventures. Eventually either they survive or go out of business.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

Did the cost of running a taxi suddenly increase because of the hostage crisis to justify higher prices?
There is some corporate responsibility as part of running a business which seems lacking here. Also the context in which i wrote it is from Sydney, which probably has one of the best transport systems in the world, so there is no question of lack of options.
I agree it's still a business, but fleecing customers in times of crisis is not good business. They need to find other means of motivating more drivers, may be pay the drivers on their own instead of making customers pay higher charges. How did they manage to offer free rides when there was backlash? That only comes when you start thinking that it's a service that you are offering to your customers.

Please note that the surge pricing is an automatic algorithm they use in case of rush hour or huge demand and not something they came up with because of the hostage crisis. This has always been the case with their pricing model, which is very similar to the pricing for airline tickets. Once demand increases, prices go up. If it is lean period, you can travel at much cheaper rates.

People can always opt for the other options in case Uber's pricing is not attractive. In Sydney, people still ended up travelling at the higher rates as Sydney's public transport systems bypassed the affected areas due to the crisis. They didn't have a choice. Without this surge pricing model, drivers would have been reluctant to go to the affected area and the people would have been stranded there - an option that anyone who paid the high premium or complained could have opted for.

In case of a crisis situation, it is better to have a choice of getting out of there at a high price rather than having no option at all to get out!

While I'm not too convinced about the long term strategy of Uber's business model, their pricing model accounts for the rush vs lean period in the price. All the users of Uber are extremely happy when you get a much cheaper transport alternative. They should also be prepared for the other side of the coin when enjoying these benefits on 99% of the days.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by zenren

Please note that the surge pricing is an automatic algorithm they use in case of rush hour or huge demand and not something they came up with because of the hostage crisis. This has always been the case with their pricing model, which is very similar to the pricing for airline tickets. Once demand increases, prices go up. If it is lean period, you can travel at much cheaper rates.

Well, then their algorithm needs some tweaking to handle these scenarios, where it's not a good idea to charge customers more. I am not against the surge pricing itself.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by sdp1975

New scam: Personal cars masquerading as taxis



Source : http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga.../45516229.cms?

Gotta read this gem from the above article,
"The official said booking a taxi on an app is illegal and operators or aggregators cannot give bills generated with the help of apps. "Using apps for generating bills has no legal sanction. The operator has to install a digital meter.Now operators are charging fare as per their discretion, which is lower than the price fixed by the authority. Now prices may be lower than prices fixed by the department, but it may not remain for long. Use of applications may lead to manipulations in future. We have directed them to use a digital meter to generate a bill. We will initiate action against operators if they fail to follow rules," said the commissioner. "



Such so called law enforcers should check the Auto Meters for both tampering & more importantly it's usage before making such archaic statements.

I do believe that there could be a certain gap between Odometer Vs GPS based distance calculators. But I haven't seen any noticeable difference myself. The only thing I'm always vary of is the Waiting Time Calculation. HOWEVER, end of the day I still pay only a little more than an Auto-rickshaw. So I wonder what's Mr.Officer is trying to fix here and only lot's of greased palms comes to my mind

Perhaps someone will integrate the car's Odometer through OBD-II to the Phone and get this information also for bill calculation.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

Well, then their algorithm needs some tweaking to handle these scenarios, where it's not a good idea to charge customers more. I am not against the surge pricing itself.

And how do you propose the algorithm does that? I am sorry but this is arguing just for the heck of it.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

And how do you propose the algorithm does that? I am sorry but this is arguing just for the heck of it.

Why can't the algorithm have a cognitive computing input like - IBM watson- which at all times culls through real time news based on GPS co-ordinates and accordingly feeds the algorithm.