New Delhi, December 28, 2015: Ola, India’s most popular mobile app for transportation today announced the launch of a ‘CarPool’ feature, allowing citizens in Delhi to pool rides using their private cars through Ola’s mobile app. With CarPool, users in Delhi will be able to take advantage of Ola’s sophisticated route matching algorithms to pool rides in their car with fellow passengers looking to travel in the same route. CarPool on the Ola app is voluntary and free of cost for hosts and their fellow passengers. This initiative will help citizens comply with the state’s first of its kind experiment to implement the odd-even formula for private cars starting January 1, 2016 that is expected to curb road congestion and pollution in a significant manner.
The Friend List feature on the Ola app allows users to create a custom list by simply adding friends with their mobile phone numbers. This helps CarPool users travel with their identified friends, allowing for increased privacy. Alternately, hosts can also choose to share their ride with anyone outside of their friends. All of Ola’s safety features including Track your Ride, Share Ride Details, 24X7 customer care support, SOS, Emergency Contacts and In-trip feedback are available on CarPool as well.
Ishan Gupta, Category Head – Shared Mobility at Ola said, “CarPool is a major innovation towards building sustainable mobility for our cities at scale. We are cognizant of the fact that 13 of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India, with vehicular pollution being the major source of pollution. CarPool will bring economy, convenience and the comfort of travelling with friends even to those who drive their own vehicles. This has potential to unlock massive idle transportation inventory in our cities, with the ease of Ola’s technology that millions already use. We are committed to building mobility for a billion Indians and we believe that sustainable initiatives like CarPool, Ola Share and Ola Shuttle will go a long way in realizing our mission.”
CarPool will now appear as a separate category on the Ola app in Delhi-NCR, using which customers can choose to share rides in their private cars. First time hosts can register by entering their vehicle details on the Ola app and make themselves available by clicking on ‘I am driving’ and entering their destination. Users who want a ride can click on ‘I need a ride’ mentioning their drop location. The Ola app will use advanced algorithms to match users from within a user’s Friend List or anyone traveling on the same route in real time depending on the user’s choice. Once additional users en-route are identified, the car owner’s Ola app gets an alert with navigation to their pickup location.
CarPool leverages Ola’s technology to enable better planning and utilization of private transportation resources that will result in long term benefits including de-congestion, curbing of pollution and sustainable mobility for cities. Most private vehicles, for the lack of better options, see only 25% utilisation of capacities. CarPool on the Ola app gives users immense capability to share rides with people from familiar groups, using technology that has proven reliable and convenient to them for their personal transportation needs.