[yatin]

If we weren't becoming a 'cosmopolitan' society & also allowing social media overreach, you wouldn't need QuickRide.

You'd find somebody with a commute matching yours, you could verify him/her if he/she is a friend-of-a-friend & simply start amortizing the financial & environmental burden. No authority can catch you if your friend-of-a-friend rider pays for petrol from his/her purse.

Apart from people new in town not knowing enough people to do that, its also damning that you can't get trustworthy references through spammy social networks (I guess its only social media, not networking). There's nothing technological preventing digital trust - trust metrics have been studied for long, look at the techie network advogato.org

(I was tempted to offer my car on QuickRide, but didn't due to lack of clarity on its Income Tax status - now, there's RTO selective attention & the insurance bugbear too.)

Car pooling is too important to wait around for corrupt authorities to support it - they've enough in the bank to settle abroad, we will be the ones left with unliveable environs.

- A resident of the ex-garden city -

[silversteed]

After Quick Ride responded to my question regarding the legality of the ride-sharing/carpooling ecosystem, it was BlaBlaCar's turn:

Thanks for contacting us. We can understand your concerns about using BlaBlaCar after reading this news report. First of all, we’d like to reassure you that carpooling is legal.

Our members are doing nothing illegal when offering rides on BlaBlaCar as long as they are sharing travel costs rather than making a profit.

We do our best every day to find profiles that are trying to use BlaBlaCar in order to run an unofficial business, something that is absolutely contrary to the concept of the platform, based on sharing costs between individual travelers. When a member violates our T&Cs, we suspend their account to prevent them from using the platform.

This is to ensure that we’re in line with the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (MVA), an act about those who make money from transporting passengers. By preventing members from making a profile while carpooling, we ensure that offering rides on BlaBlaCar is legal. To find out more:
https://www.blablacar.in/faq/questio...-ok-to-carpool

We also invite you to find out more about how we ensure that members can trust each other and check out our T&Cs:
https://www.blablacar.in/trust-safety-insurance
https://www.blablacar.in/about-us/terms-and-conditions

Your safety is our priority.

Also worth reading:

How do I know that it's OK to carpool?
The relevant regulation in India is the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (MVA). The MVA does not include provisions disallowing carpooling. The MVA regulates Contract Carriages and Public Service Vehicles which carry passengers for ‘hire and reward’. The definition of Contract Carriages and Public Service Vehicles excludes ‘a private car which is only used occasionally for the giving of lifts against some payment’. Such private car providing occasional lifts against a payment which sets off the cost of a trip is not a vehicle in which passengers are carried for ‘hire or reward’.

Although BlaBlaCar services involve facilitation of carpooling, BlaBlaCar does not encourage car-owners to make a profit or earn rewards through any other charges. BlaBlaCar automatically calculates a recommended price for every journey, ensuring that car owners do not receive reimbursement exceeding running costs. Therefore, private car owners do not require a permit for carpooling in India (as long as the private car owner does not operate for ‘hire or reward’). Please note that different interpretations to the MVA may apply for each state and we encourage you to take independent legal advice before proceeding

Originally Posted by sdp1975

Quickrides fares are between Rs 3-6 per km

I doubt there's a lower limit. And they've clearly avoided using currency, and use "points" instead. The points can later be redeemed for fuel purchase at 1 point = Re.1

[sdp1975]

Originally Posted by silversteed

I doubt there's a lower limit. And they've clearly avoided using currency, and use "points" instead. The points can later be redeemed for fuel purchase at 1 point = Re.1

That's right , there's no lower limit. The app comes with a preset fare of 3.25 per km , and that can either be increased or decreased. I don't think anyone would really go down - it just isn't worth the hassles IMO of co-ordinating , losing out on my flexibility , waiting for riders who are occasionally late or cancel at the last minute etc.

I kept it at 3.25 and 70-80% of my fuel costs are taken care of. Take maintenance , depreciation , insurance etc etc , there's no way anyone's gonna make a profit with quickride even with a higher fare per km. QuickRide takes 6% commision and there's also a 18% GST on the commision . I transfer the points I earn to Paytm and they charge 1% commision. So there are deductions that reduce your "take home" .

[igniteddriver]

Originally Posted by motorpsycho

Most of the Car pooling is used for InterCity travel, I do not think Uber/Ola would be bothered with it, as they do not server this market space.

Originally Posted by deep_bang

Oh no. Not at all. Quickride is bang in the middle of Ola/Uber riders. I have used it myself and it works quite well for intra-city rides...

I have used Quickride for sometime. I have actually asked my ride partners why they use the app and how effective they find it. Most of them used Uberpool or OLA share earlier and were fed up with both, because of the cost and the time it takes to complete the trip. Add to this, the rudeness of certain cab drivers.
On the cost sharing front, whether it is points or whatever, the transaction is financial when it comes to the conversion/redemption of points. You can transfer the points to your PayTM valet and use it as you wish. This is more like a workaround as someone has mentioned above. To fetch it too far, Quickride can consider issuing fuel cards to those who offer rides by tying up with banks, which be used can be used at petrol bunks. Banks will be happy too.

[sdp1975]

I checked my insurance policy and here's what it says :

LIMITATIONS AS TO USE - As per Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 :- The Policy covers use of the vehicle for any purpose other
than: a) Hire or Reward, b)Carriage of goods (other than samples or personal luggage), c) Organized racing, d) Pace making, e)
Speed testing, f) Reliability Trials, g) Any purpose in connection with Motor Trade.

So while offering rides may be non-commercial , for insurance purposes , these would fall under the category of "hire and reward" . The insurer may refuse to indemnify the owner in case of claims. I think that's where it stands - perhaps some our of t-bhp experts specializing in insurance law can shed light on it.

[binand]

Originally Posted by sdp1975

So while offering rides may be non-commercial , for insurance purposes , these would fall under the category of "hire and reward" .

The point is, the act does not define what Hire and Reward actually mean. Therefore each stakeholder defines it as per their convenience. If you were to ask me, it means the following:

1. Hire means that the vehicle is required to be driven to a destination that the owner/driver had no reason to go to otherwise, except for the instructions from the passengers.

2. Reward means that the vehicle's owner/driver is compensated at a minimum to cover a margin over expenses (fuel, wear & tear) and opportunity cost of driving it to the destination.

And the 'and' in between means that both (1) & (2) have to hold simultaneously.

Carpooling definitely fails on (1), because the driver is going to the destination for their own purpose (office, home, native place etc.). It probably fails (2) also because the compensation hardly includes such a margin.

The platform (Quickride, Blabla) is also vindicated as they are just a service provider, as long as they have processes in place to detect and remove professional drivers working off their platform.

As far as I can make out, in all court cases where Hire and Reward has been tested, the owner/driver has been so obviously in violation (passengers in a goods vehicle, white-board vehicle rented out etc.) that the definition itself was never in question.

[redcruiser]

I guess the target here is BlaBla app where people share intercity rides. In my view those are eating away the profits of private bus companies.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Can any lawyer guide us about this.
My understanding is that insurance policy is primarily to guard against the claims from 3rd party. That, people use the insurance policy to repair their own cars is an optional add-on service.

So if I am a co-passenger, I cannot lay a claim on the driver of the vehicle unless it is yellow number plate? Sounds foolish.

No answers to my query, do we have any lawyers on board?

[Lobogris]

I don't see why people are so up in arms about this. Charging an upfront fee totaling up to Rs 1600 is clearly commercial operation. Just because you use an app to do so doesn't make it legal. This is no different than renting your personal house as a hotel using an app. This person did this every weekend and charged per seat. How is this different than a shared taxi? If we allow this to happen, we will lose all control over taxi services as people will start using their private vehicles and there would be no checks or control at all. In India, at least until now, only proper taxis are used by Uber and Ola. In many other countries, people use their personal cars on such apps with no markings at all. This is wrong and should be prohibited in India.

Such businesses are destroying industries. For example, in major US cities, a taxi driver could make 3 to 5k $ per month and it was a good job. Now we have thousands of people who log in for an hour or two here and there and make $ 20 to 50 per day when they have time. Such small income helps no one as one can't make a living out of it. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of taxi drivers are practically unemployed as now they struggle to compete with these apps. People who paid up to half a million dollars to get a taxi medallion (permit) are facing bankruptcy as their business is failing. It would be okay if a new company or a new group of people got the work and profits like Uber / Ola drivers in India. However, in the US (and many other countries) private people are using their private cars to make a little extra money and thus they are ruining an entire industry. That is why it is important that all applicable rules, taxes, licences and fees are mandatory for any app based business just like they are for traditional businesses.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

Charging an upfront fee totaling up to Rs 1600 is clearly commercial operation.

For a trip that costs Rs. 3000 for fuel? (I think the case in question is an inter-city trip between Hyderabad and Bangalore).

Originally Posted by Lobogris

People who paid up to half a million dollars to get a taxi medallion (permit) are facing bankruptcy as their business is failing.

That is the underlying problem - half a million dollars for a taxi permit? Artificial scarcity and consequent price inflation. This is clearly protectionist and anti-entrepreneurship. Who can afford to put up that much upfront to run a taxi business? Instead spend a twentieth of that on a car and earn just as much driving for Uber. Isn't it a good thing?

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

I don't see why people are so up in arms about this. Charging an upfront fee totaling up to Rs 1600 is clearly commercial operation. Just because you use an app to do so doesn't make it legal. This is no different than renting your personal house as a hotel using an app. This person did this every weekend and charged per seat. How is this different than a shared taxi?
However, in the US (and many other countries) private people are using their private cars to make a little extra money and thus they are ruining an entire industry. That is why it is important that all applicable rules, taxes, licences and fees are mandatory for any app based business just like they are for traditional businesses.

Lobogris, thank you for a sane well composed post, as always.

Originally Posted by binand

Instead spend a twentieth of that on a car and earn just as much driving for Uber. Isn't it a good thing?

1/20th yes but for how long? Ques: How long will equity fund operating losses Ans: Till they have driven the others out of business and then the monopoly pricing will start. The only thing worse than a Govt monopoly is a private one.

All, It is not in the customers' interests that those moon lighting when convenient drive out those running a permanent service. Uber/Ola need to co-exist with the old yellow tops, Meru's etc. If they wish to run a car-pooling business or service then let them pony up the taxes the rest of the world does. Businesses that run on Apps somehow carry the notion that Govt regulations and taxes don't apply to them. Those regulations were put in place for a reason.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by binand

That is the underlying problem - half a million dollars for a taxi permit? Artificial scarcity and consequent price inflation. This is clearly protectionist and anti-entrepreneurship. Who can afford to put up that much upfront to run a taxi business? Instead spend a twentieth of that on a car and earn just as much driving for Uber. Isn't it a good thing?

Aha. So I should be able to set up a kiosk right outside any fancy restaurant or coffee shop and sell my food at half price? Half a million dollars was in New York city, one of the richest and busiest markets. People took loans which they paid off over decades, just like buying a restaurant or petrol station. If the government established a set of conditions and a price for providing a service then those conditions should apply to all. For instance if a major company pays 5 billion $ for spectrum, you can't allow a new person to set up cheaper towers for free the next day. I love Uber. I use it all the time in India. However I want them to use proper taxis and approved drivers, not some random guy who decided to log in.

[V.Narayan]

Slightly off topic but what is common to Flipkart, Amazon and Uber [and maybe Ola too] -- they are burning equity to sell us services at an unrealistically low price to kill the local competition till.....!

[arjunsatheesh]

I have been using QuickRide for almost 2 years now and it seems to help the person offering the ride as well as the rider. Previously I used to feel guilty because I was driving a sedan alone when there were 4 free seats. Intercity rides in my opinion are dangerous but we use carpooling to commute to office and nothing else. Coming to the profit part, by no means can we make profit by carpooling. It will never cover insurance, periodic service and the occasional fender bender. If you look carefully at the situation in Bangalore, police checking has increased almost about 200% in the past couple of months. I don't know whether the government is trying to recover the farmer loan waiver or not but it is getting very irritating now.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

Aha. So I should be able to set up a kiosk right outside any fancy restaurant or coffee shop and sell my food at half price?

Why not? That is how free markets need to work. Ceteris paribus if some people find your cheaper food worthwhile, they will come to you. Some others will find the fancier restaurant more appealing. What we can't have is a situation where there cannot be another restaurant in a 1-km radius of my fancy one. And if my business plan requires a system where no other restaurant is allowed to operate in the neighbourhood, then I am better off elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Lobogris

For instance if a major company pays 5 billion $ for spectrum, you can't allow a new person to set up cheaper towers for free the next day.

Obviously no prudent businessman will buy spectrum for that price unless the contract includes clauses that such cheaper towers wouldn't come up the next day. Look at the arrangement BIAL has. No other airport in a 150 km radius for the next 35 years.

(I'm not saying both these are good arrangements. On the contrary, I think both are bad. In telecom for example, there are only 3-4 players now so even though I think Airtel's service is atrocious I don't have an alternative provider to switch to. That is bad for me as the end user. Similarly I understand BIAL is blocking the inclusion of Hosur Airport in the UDAN plan).

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Till they have driven the others out of business and then the monopoly pricing will start. The only thing worse than a Govt monopoly is a private one.

You can be a monopoly only if you have that sort of competitive advantage. In the Uber world there are no barriers to entry, so they cannot be a monopoly in the long run.