Now rent a bike taxi for multiple stops

Now rent a bike taxi for multiple stops

Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com

11.02.2021 

Bike taxi services have been an economical alternative to cabs, especially for the young who wanted a short trip or two, but for those who wanted to visit several places over a few hours without an own vehicle, options were limited.

Now, the only bike taxi service in the city offers rental services for multipoint trips. Rapido, which has been operating in Chennai for two years, launched the facility on Wednesday, which may spur more service providers to enter the scene. The new service will allow commuters, who have to complete multiple tasks at different locations but do not want to go through the hassle of multiple bookings and waiting for the ride to arrive every time.

Rapido said this would will bring down transportation cost further. In case someone travels around 40km in the city within four hours using the bike rental option, it would cost him/ her ₹399. Renting a cab for a similar duration or distance would cost around ₹650, which is almost 60% more. Ola and Uber offer bike taxi services in the city, but their expansion plans have been put on hold due to the pandemic. Two years ago, the authorities seized 175 bike taxis calling them illegal. But the Madras high court allowed bike taxi services and told the government to frame necessary guidelines. The government, however, is yet to frame the rules.

Rapido co-founder Aravind Sanka said that in the last months the company noticed a rising need for multistop, affordable and easily accessible ride among customers. “With Rapido Rental, we aim to address the need of such users. This can be a short stopover to pick a few things from a local shop to longer/ multiple stops related to work or personal use such as for comprehensive shopping or house hunting.” he said.

An official statement from the company said that the concept was conceived as a result of customer usage data analysis. The Company launched an MVP (minimal viable product) to validate the data and hypothesis. Rapido Rental operates in six tier-I Indian cities including Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad in the south. Rapido, which launched its operation in Chennai with 500 bikes in 2019, has around 90,000 ‘captains’ (riders) who share the earnings with the company.

Transportation activist R Rengachari said, “Given the significant reduction in MTC’s small buses and share autorickshaws hiking fare, bike taxis would attract more passengers.” he said.