Ride-sharing firm, Ola Cabs has restarted its bike taxi services in Bengaluru, after suspending it amidst legal ambiguity around the use of non-electric bikes for commercial taxi purposes. This time, the company will only be using its own all-electric Ola Electric S1 scooters. In a tweet, Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said that the company is restarting bike taxi services in Bengaluru today (Saturday) with its own S1 scooters. The service is being launched at a price of Rs 25 for up to 5 km and Rs 50 for up to 10 km, an additional Rs 2 is charged as a platform fee per ride.
Aggarwal said that the service is of the lowest cost, very comfortable and great for the environment. He added that the company will scale the service across the country over the next few months.
An Ola spokesperson told Financial Express that the service is scheduled for an official launch in Bengaluru some time next week. Users in select areas of Bengaluru, however, were able to use the bike taxi service on Saturday. However, the legality of running non-electric two-wheelers as bike taxis remains ambiguous with no clear regulation defining the use of such vehicles for commercial purposes. Karnataka became the first state in the country to roll out an electric bike taxi policy in July 2021.
However, even after two years, not a single operator had begun offering e-bike taxi services in Bengaluru, until Ola’s announcement on Saturday. The state had, in 2019, suspended Ola’s licence to operate in the state for six months after the homegrown cab aggregator failed to comply with an order to suspend two-wheeler taxi services in the state’s capital Bengaluru, which prompted the company to remove the service from its app in the city.
However, it is important to note that despite ambiguity around the legality of running two-wheeler non-electric motorbikes as taxis, Rapido and Uber have continued to run this service in Bengaluru.
Rapido, claims to be the market leader in bike taxis with a 65% share while operating in 100 cities across 24 states. In Karnataka, however, the app has faced strong opposition from The Federation of Karnataka State Private Transport Associations, representing 36 bus, taxi, and goods vehicle unions, who sought to put pressure on the government with a strike across the city on Monday, September 11, demanding various rights and compensations. One of the key demands was an immediate ban on bike taxi services operated by Rapido.
Despite legal challenges, mobility experts believe that bike taxis remain an important factor in solving the mobility and traffic congestion problems in major cities like Bengaluru, where 15%, or 2.5 million, of the estimated 13 million population, use bike taxis as their mode of daily commute. Rapido, claims to be the market leader in bike taxis with a 65% share while operating in 100 cities across 24 states.
Opponents argue that they are unsafe and pose a threat to the financial stability of traditional taxi drivers, who are already under pressure from taxes and licensing procedures. Proponents of bike taxis argue that they are a convenient and affordable option for commuters and that they create jobs.
However, experts believe that the move to restart bike taxi services as an ‘all-electric’ service puts Ola in a comfortable position to win market share and avoid legal hassles, while Rapido, and Uber, may suffer in hindsight from an unfavourable court hearing in less than a month, considering that both these companies deploy non-electric vehicles whose legality as commercial taxis is questionable, and strongly opposed by transport associations.
