Roads are one of the most common source of transportation in India. Door-to-door availability and easy & cheap to construct & maintain roads accelerate the transportation by road. Major share of road transportation is of cabs in metro cities. Attire of cabs varies from cities to cities. Yellow coloured Ambassador in Kolkata, kaali-peeli cabs in Mumbai, CNG black coloured cabs in Delhi had the monopoly. Private cabs need not to have a specific livery. But in last decade the trend in cab services changed a lot. Today cab services are just a click away. You can book a cab at your door step and cab will arrive within 15 minutes. Economic and fast service changed the trend to App based cab services.
Cab services
Depending on the demographic location and people interest, cab service provider are providing many different services. Services ranges from auto rickshaw to women-driven cabs (for women safety). Ola cabs and Uber, two most common used cab services in India provide different services in different cities. Cab sharing, low-cost cabs, luxury cabs, cabs at airport, on-board internet facilities are some of their services.
Reason behind growth of app based cab services
Change in the trend of fleet ownership allows companies to grow in multiple cities. Now the cabs are not owned by the companies rather they make a bridge between riders and drivers, allowing more cabs to connect to more riders. With growth of technology, booking of cabs is shifted to app based and website based booking. Riders can pay through cash, credit cards and debit cards and through many payment gateways after completion of ride. Introduction of different segments of cabs from hatchback to luxury cars engage many more riders. Better control on availability, quality of cabs, tracking of cabs and safety of passenger are the major factors for growth of cabs services.
Different cab providers
Uber works very differently in India. Globally, Uber take payments through credit and debit cards but in India Uber also take cab fare in Cash. This allow Uber to connect more riders as major portion of Indian population tend to pay via cash. Uber is currently available in 28 Indian cities. Uber grab attention in a very different way like free or discounted rides on mother’s day, father’s day, republic day etc. Uber Go and Uber Pool as a low cost cab for Indian market. Uber also allow drivers to use their cars as a cabs other than Uber. Uber also provide Luxury cars as Uber Black, the fleet include Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz.
OlaCabs works the same way as Uber. OlaCabs being an Indian start-up is more inclined to Indian cities, providing cab services in 85 Indian cities. OlaCabs also connects drivers and riders, but OlaCabs started including company owned cars to its fleet. OlaCabs too provide variety of segments of cars from OlaAuto to OlaLux. OlaCabs introduced OlaShuttle for Corporate employee to travel daily to their offices.
Meru cab is India’s first Radio cab and working of Meru cabs changed a lot. Initially Meru cab was started with aim to provide cabs to drivers but with time Meru cab allowed drivers to own their own car and drive car as Meru cab with some percentage of commission of Meru on each ride. Meru has an agreement with all the major airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Meru cab has 3 segments of cabs – their flagship Meru, Meru Plus and low cost hatchback Genie. Meru also facilitates with bank loans for drivers to buy the cars.
Ixigo Cab has a different plans from Ola, Uber and Meru cabs. Ixigo cab provide outstation cabs with both option as one-way and return. One-way option give customer, saving up to 50%. Ixigo also introduces one tab cab booking which works even without internet. Ixigo app also compares the fares of other including OlaCabs, Uber and allow to book the cab through Ixigo app itself.
ApnaCab is the govt. authorized security enabled black-yellow cabs and cool cabs in Mumbai. Customer can also avail cabs for 16hours, 8hours and 4hours. Fare of ApnaCab is regulated by the government. Customer can choose from air-conditional and non-air-conditional cabs. All the ApnaCab runs on CNG to ensure less pollution. On a click of customer on Panic button, allowing passenger to get assistance regarding untoward incident.
Womencabs.com is a unique cab service provider focused only on safety of women and their families. All the cabs are driven by women and increasing the women empowerment. With rise in number of question on women safety, when they are travelling alone, womencabs.com is the answer to some. These cabs are not only creating employment for women and creating a safe and reliable service for women. Womencabs can be booked through website and by call. No men can avail this service as this is primarily focused on women safety, but men travelling with family can avail this. All cabs are equipped with GPS tracking system and microphone to ensure safely of passengers as well as drivers.
With 10,723 visits on www.womencabs.com from March 2016 to May 2016 has monthly average of 3574 visits where 68.873% of visits on desktop website and 31.27% visits on mobile website. Bounce rate of 53.96% is quite high i.e. percentage of people who navigate to other websites after viewing only single page. 46.04% of people view more than 2 pages is still a good proportion.
Conclusion
Advertising and promoting the cab service providing companies is very crucial in the competitive Indian Market. Proper study of market need is very crucial. E-marketing is the best way to reach to the large audience. People need cabs at hotels, airports and bars. Availability of cabs at such places on a single call will help to grow at much faster pace. Women security is the major concern in India, www.womencabs.com provide safe and reliable cabs for women. Cabs for students from school to home and vice versa will attract many parents as they can track the movement of their child. Self-drive cars or cars on rent for longer period is the emerging trend in India. Demand of cabs is much higher than supply due to lack of skilled drivers, leading to unavailability of cabs at major locations like railway stations, bus stands and airports. There is still huge opportunity of growth in cab service sector as major portion is still unorganized.
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