In India, two-wheelers are extremely popular among people just like public transport. Owing to the convenience, most of the daily commuters use two-wheelers for their regular rides to work. However, for the public who rely on public transport like buses, the congested roads and long queues can be inconvenient as it delays their commute time. Even the cabs and rickshaws cannot help as the fares can be extremely high for a short distance. Understanding this fact of importance, several startups are offering bike taxi services to provide you with a faster, convenient, and affordable rate in several states of India.
Bike Taxis in Indian states
The number of motorcycle taxis and the bikes on rent services has increased in several states of India post-2015. Till then, the only state that has had the bike taxis as a mode of public transport was Goa. Later, startups like Rapido, Ola’s Ola Bikes, and Uber’s UberMoto started their bike taxi services in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore as a solution for last-mile and first-mile connectivity. But, most of the services that launched the two-wheeler taxi services shut their operations before celebrating their first year of success. A handful of startups that made it through includes:
- Rapido, a Bangalore based startup that expanded its services to 100+ cities now
- Gurugram based Baxi
- Delhi based Bikxie
- Ola Bikes
- UberMoto
The cab service giant’s bike taxi services UberMoto and Ola Bikes offer its services in 11 cities and 31 cities respectively, but with little success. Ola is also planning to provide the service to 25 more cities, to widen its operations and popularity. Though, not like the Indonesia based bike-taxi firm, Go-Jek, which is extremely popular there, startups like Rapido has created its own space among the public in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, NCR, Lucknow, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Vishakhapatnam, Indore, Guwahati, Surat, Patna and Ranchi to name a few. But the people also confuse the two-wheeler taxi service with bikes on rent which is entirely different. Bike taxis are just like cabs, where you’ll be provided with a driver to drop you at your destination safely.
The impact and its growth
Though Indian public love motorcycles, there are still challenges that the startups need to tackle with. One of the main problems is unclear regulations by the government and tough competition from similar startups. To sustain their business in such a harsh competitive environment, the startups need to think out of the box and attract the users. As the bike taxis have convenience and affordability as a significant positive, they can easily grow their business with proper awareness and regulations. The motorcycle taxi services are also expanding their business to home deliveries for pharmacies and local supermarkets to improve its operations and services.