[deehunk]

Spoke to the Ola driver who dropped me today at the office, he confirmed that from today they are going on a hunger strike. He quoted a few of his recent experience

• The head weight a customer carries, last week one person who was looking for a cab to Airport canceled 5 bookings, the reason all the 5 cabs allotted were Indica's.
• He also spoke about Ola now looking for only post-2014 models and are terminating their contract with old vehicles.
• The fuel price has increased by Rs.16 since the time Micro was introduced but the driver is not compensated by Ola or Uber.
• The average driving speed in the city is now 15kmph, so how can a driver complete 18 trips in a day

This is a chaos created by aggregators who did not know ABC of the taxi business. He also did not forget to mention the investment made by people on taxi's and hiring drivers on the basis of cost/trip or monthly salary.

[lambuhere1]

UBER CEO RATED 1 STAR BY UBER DRIVER

Source : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-falling-fares

the Uber driver app prompts him to rate Kalanick, as he does all his riders. Kamel (the driver) gives him one star


Kalanick: “Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!”

Kamel: “Good luck to you, but I know [you're not] going to go far.”

Its worth reading the whole d*** page. Gives you more insights not known earlier

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by deehunk

This is a chaos created by aggregators who did not know ABC of the taxi business. He also did not forget to mention the investment made by people on taxi's and hiring drivers on the basis of cost/trip or monthly salary.

So, who does know the ABC to Z of the taxi business?
The drivers? Looking at their current state, i would presume not.
And if they do know, then they got into it just to take advantage of the aggregators? Didn't expect them to wisen up?
The court put it right with this:
"At the same the time, the court said that two drivers' unions have to "get it out of their head" that they can "extract" something from these companies by agitations as they do with the government."

I am all for rights and timely payments etc, but expecting a commercial venture to keep doling out just beyond their honey trap period is stupid. These drivers did not participate in any ponzi scheme. Take it or go.

[fordday]

Originally Posted by deehunk

Spoke to the Ola driver who dropped me today at the office, he confirmed that from today they are going on a hunger strike. He quoted a few of his recent experience

• The head weight a customer carries, last week one person who was looking for a cab to Airport canceled 5 bookings, the reason all the 5 cabs allotted were Indica's.

In this case I think the customer loses because there is a penalty for the customer too if he goes on cancelling bookings. Correct me if I am wrong.

Originally Posted by deehunk

• He also spoke about Ola now looking for only post-2014 models and are terminating their contract with old vehicles.

Those days of anything passing off as a taxi that has four wheels are gone. you need to keep up with customer needs. Nobody wants a battered down taxi.

On one occasion I got a much abused non working AC taxi from Uber. I rated that drive as low as possible.

Originally Posted by deehunk

• The fuel price has increased by Rs.16 since the time Micro was introduced but the driver is not compensated by Ola or Uber.

Agreed. This should be a factor in deciding payments to the drivers. But these taxi aggregators have their payments plan changed every other day. I am sure they take fuel price into their algorithms.

Originally Posted by deehunk

• The average driving speed in the city is now 15kmph, so how can a driver complete 18 trips in a day

• The taxi drivers are partly to be blamed here.

Originally Posted by deehunk

This is a chaos created by aggregators who did not know ABC of the taxi business.

You must be joking here. Uber is running taxi business all over the world.
This is akin to saying Elon Musk does not know anything about science while sending those space rockets.

[deehunk]

Hi Fordday,

• The customer loses Rs.50 for cancellation, but why have a bad perception about Indica even before you have seen the cab.
• The question on post-2014 models, no problem if it is a value addition, but is there enough business assured for a driver to buy a new vehicle every 3 years.
• There is no price protection for drivers, it is like how Auto's are taking advantage of minimum fare of Rs.25, this was increased when the LPG price increased to Rs.66 per liter in 2013. Today the price is around Rs.39 per liter and the minimum fare has not been rolled back in 4 years.
• There is a pressure on drivers to complete maximum trips where they are paid a monthly salary by unknown investors, if the driver cum owner concept is promoted, there won't be harassment of drivers by the vehicle owners.

[srishiva]

Is this issue because the govt regulated the pricing ? The aggregators started with low prices but paid the drivers well to keep the business growing. Then they tried to raise the prices (time based, traffic based etc).

Now the only thing they can do is cut back on what they pay the drivers ? Some convergence has to happen to keep everything sane I guess.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by lambuhere1

Its worth reading the whole d*** page. Gives you more insights not known earlier

I did read it in the morning as it was also featured on NDTV's site. I really admire him for saying this regarding another cab aggregator service.

Kalanick: “It seems like a piece of cake because I’ve beaten them. But if I didn’t do the things I did, we would have been beaten, I promise.”

People do assume that you are having it easy. The reality is Uber ( or any other company for that matter) is only trying to stay profitable and beat the competition.

Kamel: “But people are not trusting you anymore. … I lost $97,000 because of you. I'm bankrupt because of you. Yes, yes, yes. You keep changing every day. You keep changing every day.”

That looks like an exaggerated figure. I doubt a cab driver in USA would have $97000 lying around to splurge on a business like Uber. And in the remote possibility that he really did, then it is his fault for not having more business sense about what he is getting into.

Originally Posted by deehunk

Spoke to the Ola driver who dropped me today at the office, he confirmed that from today they are going on a hunger strike. He quoted a few of his recent experience

I am happy that the courts did not bow down to their demand. I really doubt if anyone does a genuine hunger strike these days. And strike for what? You don't like the way Uber operates? Then go ahead and leave them. The cab is yours and you are free to drive it like the " good old days of hailing a cab on the road". If that doesn't cut it out for you either, then sell off the cab, cut your losses and do some other work/profession.

[*]The head weight a customer carries, last week one person who was looking for a cab to Airport canceled 5 bookings, the reason all the 5 cabs allotted were Indica's.

When a customer is paying then he is well within his right to cancel as many times as he wants. First of all Uber does charge you a cancellation amount if you cancelled a few minutes after the booking ( basically to say that the driver allotted wasted his time and fuel by coming to your pick up location and you cancelled). If you cancel immediately then there is no harm done and you are allowed to cancel. So in this case the cab driver has again no right to complain. Moreover if you keep cancelling your account gets blocked by Uber. Lastly even in the so called good old cab days, there was always a demand for some vehicles by customers. That is the reason why Cab operators preferred to buy Innovas as customers preferred it and were willing to pay more for it.

[*]He also spoke about Ola now looking for only post-2014 models and are terminating their contract with old vehicles.

A cab easily does 1L kms in 3 years time. And hence I do not see any fault in this too. It is business and the cab driver also needs to keep up with the advancement. As a customer, we all hate to sit down in old badly kept rattling cars. Again I can draw a parallel here. As a radiologist, we need to continuously modify/renew our equipment ( read as scanning machines) because the patients want the latest technology even if it doesn't really change or alter their treatment/diagnosis.

[*]The fuel price has increased by Rs.16 since the time Micro was introduced but the driver is not compensated by Ola or Uber.

Uber and Ola never go by fixed pricing. There is always that Surge component and these perks and bonuses. So these hikes in fuel prices is a wrong reason. As many have pointed out before, a ride using the cheapest 6 Rs a km ride doesn't really turn out to be 6 Rs per km at the end of the journey.

[*]The average driving speed in the city is now 15kmph, so how can a driver complete 18 trips in a day

That is an extreme scenario as that is the highest incentive deal offered. They also get incentives for lesser number of rides. Moreover they do encounter small short trips too. The 18 trip a day offer might apply to a cab aggregator who employs multiple drivers in shifts to keep his cab running all the time.

He also did not forget to mention the investment made by people on taxi's and hiring drivers on the basis of cost/trip or monthly salary.

I can only say that this is not some bondage deal where the driver needs to stay with the operator now. If they feel they are not getting their targeted or expected income they are free to leave and find work elsewhere. As far as I know, they are not fools. They knew very well that such high monthly incomes cannot be sustained. And they were happy till it lasted and in the process did not leave any stone un-turned in way of cheating the companies for more incentives. An engineer/doctor/MBA gets around 50-80k as starter salaries after putting years of hardwork and acquiring those specialised skills. To expect to earn the same amount of money and in many cases rather more money than this, by driving a cab is the funniest joke I have heard.

I only hope that the government does not step in to please these drivers as vote banks and interfere with the process.

[Fillmore]

Here is what I heard from one Uber driver. Unfair trade practices being executed by Uber on the drivers.

There are 2 types of drivers
- Car is self financed by the driver
- Car is financed by Uber - In which case a daily EMI of around 999/- gets cut from their Uber account.

It seems that all the bookings are routed only to the drivers whose cars are financed by Uber. If a booking is made by a customer and there are 3 self financed uber cars available on the spot the App still searches for Uber financed cars and transmits the booking to those drivers even though they may be 3 - 4 km away. Only in the absence of an Uber financed car is the booking routed to the other drivers.

Another new feature introduced by the App is that if the car is stationary for more than 20 min .. no bookings are routed to it . So they have to keep moving all the time even if empty thereby using up fuel.

Not sure how true these 2 are , but this is what I heard.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

A cab easily does 1L kms in 3 years time. And hence I do not see any fault in this too. It is business and the cab driver also needs to keep up with the advancement. As a customer, we all hate to sit down in old badly kept rattling cars. Again I can draw a parallel here. As a radiologist, we need to continuously modify/renew our equipment ( read as scanning machines) because the patients want the latest technology even if it doesn't really change or alter their treatment/diagnosis.

I agree to all your points except this one - Classifying cars based on old and new just by giving a time/distance cutoff is not so fair for a driver. Rather the companies must spend some time and effort to continuously monitor the upkeep of vehicles. Some drivers do keep the car in top shape even after 3-4 years of use. Such vehicles would have done more than 1L kms and still look fresh and only when we look at the odo we will get to know the actual age of the car. There is no point in allowing a one year old car fully battered and dirtily maintained compared to a much old car but in superb condition.

Imagine the driver has taken a 5 year loan, he will have to sell the car once its 3 years old, and go through foreclosing the loan(at a loss probably) and also start out with downpayment for a new car. The EMI burden will be forever.

Uber in Bangalore had newer cars and better maintained vehicles compared to Ola who till today have battered Indicas and Logans with poor cleanliness inside. I guess now they just want to get this image off and hence have came up with this half baked thought. Instead, they could just inspect the cars and disqualify/detach those cars which havent been maintained properly.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by lambuhere1

Gives you more insights not known earlier

Actually, these were known earlier but it didn't quite blow up in everyone's faces because the situation was stable at the beginning. Let's introspect UBER's terms and conditions so that their long-term goal is evident :

- Anyone with a driving license and car could join in.
- Flexible working hours, one can choose when to quit - this is tempting.
- Riders do not need to argue about destination or distance, set it digitally and you're done.
- No hassling in terms of fare, what the phone shows is what you pay.
- A range of services from entry level cars to top end, based on affordability.

Now the situation in these businesses are extremely dynamic. UBER had the advantage of being the first no doubt and full marks to Travis Kalanick & Garrett Camp for that, the app is no-nonsense, extremely easy to use and has revolutionized travel like nothing before it, even for a tech-averse person like myself (I understand tech very well, I just hate it for that very reason), UBER exists on my phone and that's an achievement for UBER.

Now I'm sure that UBER, being the goldmine that it is, has VC's opting for a different kind of strategy - domination. Domination means getting more riders and more drivers onto the platform worldwide, more people would mean the services will reach essential status and then the bankrolling would start. For now they are being funded very, very well, even in the face of copy-cat competition like Lyft (U.S) and OLA (India). The last I read they have a total support of 15$ billion, the last 2$ billion coming from Saudi Arabian investors.

Its far from a perfect company, but Kalanick might just pull off a big win if at all the dust settles and the way of operations are better organized. I'm well aware that they are screwing both the riders and drivers in many ways, we're left giving ratings to each other while UBER pulls the strings from behind the curtains with their peak surges (2.0x) and if the drivers are being truthful - partiality towards UBER funded cabs while giving trips. Of course I would still prefer it to autos any day of the week, at the heights of my UBER usage months ago I'd spent roughly Rs.12k+ (including surge costs+ full UberX rates), so I was what UBER would consider one of their "ideal" patrons.

Its a fantastic concept but its extremely messy as well, one needs to trample many people in this without feeling guilt and Kalanick is doing that. Seeing the absolutely absurd demands by drivers here, tells me for sure that India, isn't a place for UBER, given their 10% commission and all their expenses for office, people etc and further converting it to dollars, I'm sure the company is losing left right and center in this country. They should just restrict it to the world's greatest country (in terms of luxury anyway) and leave it at that. I get jealous when I hear that my contacts in U.S get Bimmers and high end Hyundais (Sonata/Elantra) as their rides.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by audioholic

I agree to all your points except this one - Classifying cars based on old and new just by giving a time/distance cutoff is not so fair for a driver. Rather the companies must spend some time and effort to continuously monitor the upkeep of vehicles.

I totally agree with you even though generally speaking a very few cabs would be well maintained to run after 1L kms without any signs of abuse. But yes, whatever small % of them are, they should be allowed to run. The periodic assessment of the cars coupled with customer ratings should be the criterion for renewing their licenses.

[deehunk]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Actually, these were known earlier but it didn't quite blow up in everyone's faces because the situation was stable at the beginning. Let's introspect UBER's terms and conditions so that their long-term goal is evident:

- Anyone with a driving license and car could join in.
- Flexible working hours, one can choose when to quit - this is tempting.

Seeing the absolutely absurd demands by drivers here tells me for sure that India, isn't a place for UBER, given their 10% commission and all their expenses for office, people etc and further converting it to dollars, I'm sure the company is losing left right and center in this country. I get jealous when I hear that my contacts in U.S get Bimmers and high-end Hyundais (Sonata/Elantra) as their rides.

Thanks, audioholic and dark.knight for throwing light on the dark side of this business model, as you said UBER did not understand the reality of taxi business in India. It is always easy to make visually appealing presentations and forecasting everything green inside a conference room, but when you fight it out on the roads, you will realize your mistakes. I take a cab from Magrath Road to EGL and vice versa every day, today when I was booking the cab the app was showing 3 taxis which were 3 minutes from my location but when the booking was confirmed, the assigned cab was near Shanthinagar. The driver came to my place empty for almost 3km's. I see this happening almost every day and wonder who set up this model in the system.

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I get jealous when I hear that my contacts in U.S get Bimmers and high end Hyundais (Sonata/Elantra) as their rides.

Indeed coz I booked a UberX (I think) and was sent this behemoth at no extra charges.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Seeing the absolutely absurd demands by drivers here, tells me for sure that India, isn't a place for UBER, given their 10% commission and all their expenses for office, people etc and further converting it to dollars, I'm sure the company is losing left right and center in this country.

Exactly what it looks like. Though they dont have a huge workforce in their locations, the earnings still looks puny. Just take a look at this article which compares taxi fares in New York with Uber:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/federic.../#634903005bd7

Both are somewhat equally expensive, just that one turns out to be cheaper than the other in their own set of use cases. In India, thats not the case. The Merus and other call taxis have always been expensive compared to Uber/Ola, unless the latter were running on serious surge prices.

So its going to be a nice few months ahead to see how the companies change their policies/fares to try to respond to such agitations.

This brings us to another thought(though very very unlikely) - What if Uber simply shut shop and stopped services in India? This one question is enough to rattle all their drivers and get them back to work actually.

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by audioholic

What if Uber simply shut shop and stopped services in India? This one question is enough to rattle all their drivers and get them back to work actually.

Agree. I would be very happy if the likes of Ola and Uber shut shop and go away (though my wife who uses Uber on regular basis thinks otherwise). My reasons:

1. These companies run business and not here for charity. The sooner the people understand, the better. Roping in a politician for their rescue does not help or just may till the elections are over
2. The drivers who come from the adjacent districts of Bangalore, have no interest in farming activities now. Every Tom, Dineshaa and Harishaa wants to make a quick buck and migrate to Bangalore. Getting farm hands is a big problem in villages now. Later, the people will neither have the skills/willingness to work in farms nor have decent income to sustain themselves in big cities.
3. Nothing more to speak of the congestion the cabs are contributing to.