Auto Rickshaw : Clocking Out

I occasionally travel to Bangalore from Chennai. Usually, if I am the only one travelling, I will go looking for an auto. A yellow auto will stop, look at me and once I say station, he comes up with a flat rate of 250. I look at him aghast, he looks on at me with tired eyes and then the bargaining begins. By the end of it, I will be in the auto, and would have agreed to pay him 235 bucks. And yet he will drive as though he has lost the battle – all sulky face and making the wheel I sit on, go over a lot of bumps and potholes.

About two months ago, when I made the trip, however, I booked a taxi from TaxiForSure (For some reason I did not like the name Ola). The call itself was very courteous, but I was not convinced, as the Fast Track guy, who will also talk nicely, but turn around and charge 350 bucks for the same ride that I had to haggle with the auto driver for 235.

I got 2 sms messages – one about an hour before the booked time with the details of the driver and the car, and one after the ride has arrived. I get in and at the end of the ride, I looked at the bill and was dumbfounded!

156 only!!

The initial reaction was Woow and a solemn oath that I took, looking up at the starry sky, that I will swear by TaxiForSure from now on.

Naturally, when I made the trip again, I booked from the same company. This time, however, I engaged in a conversation with the driver. Murali, had switched to TaxiForSure only a month back from Fast Track call taxi. When I asked how the new place was treating him, he looked at me through the rear view mirror and said ‘Super Sir. You should see the office. Looks like an IT Company. We had training and there was free food during the training. It was very informative too. Learnt a lot of things I didn’t know before’. Then when I mentioned about my last trip’s 156 rupee bill, he said that for the same trip, the driver would have received the same amount plus an additional 30 bucks. I was puzzled and Murali was too.

How is TaxiForSure making money?

When you google the same, several theories came up. They can be summed up as follows:

·         Both Ola and TaxiForSure are stocked up on money from angel investors and venture capitalists that they can afford to bleed till they own a market share on both sides of the coin – taxis and drivers attached to them and the customer base.

·         They both make money from commissions they get from the owners of cars who have attached with their services for on-call taxi.

The list goes on. But I digress. The main question I had was ‘What Next?’

It has to be admitted that battle between Ola & TaxiForSure has triggered the much needed price war to take the call taxi market by storm.  But where will it go from here. Ola has already launched on call auto rickshaw and cabs serviced by women drivers. But it is worth pondering on the question as to whether this is the end of the auto rickshaw. The guiding question being why will I pay 230 bucks for an auto rick at the expense of my energy, when I can get a comfortable AC car costing me only 156 bucks for the same trip.

Of course, this is written in the context of cities like Chennai, wherein, the auto rickshaws never / don’t always use the meter. But even in cities like Bangalore where the meter is more frequently used, call taxis do pose a challenge to an auto driver’s daily revenue. Auto rickshaw and cars are for different consumer segments – auto being for the money minded or for short trips while cars are more for comfort seekers and longer and safer journeys. So an auto driver depends on more number of trips as compared to a cab driver. Add to this the summers getting hotter and taxi aggregators offering lesser fares for hiring cabs by the hour and the open windowed auto seems to be in for a tough ride. Rains play their role too in adding to their woes.

With Ola entering the on-call auto rickshaw, this may increase the auto’s appeal to a customer due to the clarity and transparency in pricing while reducing the cost of finding a commuter for the auto driver. But still the fact remains that the auto driver will have to depend on number of trips offered to earning a living, as compared to a call taxi driver. This can lead to more auto drivers becoming call taxi drivers and a lowering of demand for auto rickshaws. Also, to be factored in are the Volvo AC buses being rolled out for certain lines, at a slightly premium price, which also will eat away at the auto rickshaw demand.

Whether they will go extinct, No.

But Auto rickshaws may cease to play a role in the transportation, at least in the cities and metros, leading to taxis dominating the market, alongside public transportation. Auto could either go extinct or be innovative and offering ride sharing (like share auto in Chennai), but that too may be difficult to generate revenue. 

Or it can end up being a part of history, for example, by offering an immersive experience of what it would like to ride in an auto rickshaw for travelers from abroad. That way at least, the Auto Rickshaw can avoid riding alongside a Dodo and ending up at the dead end.