making roadS leSS CongeSted
Using the IT technology in carpooling system can de-congest traffic on the roads. KNM Rao, CEO & Co-Founder, Quick Ride shares some details of this process with Dataquet. Excerpts:
Tell us about your growth journey, milestones, services, number of riders etc
Started in 2015, Quick Ride helps every car owner to build a carpooling culture and enable the urban commuters to start sharing the empty seats in their car with colleagues. We enable commuters to use technology in order to discover, connect and route-match with other carpoolers in a seamless and automated manner. We automate end to end process of carpooling and make it feasible for the urban commuter.
With better use of vehicles, many more cars can be taken off the road every single day. This will go a long way in making cities cleaner, greener and reduce road congestion. With our service, colleagues from the same workplace or friends in the college can come together to share a ride. As soon as users request a ride on app, they are matched with car owners along their way and the car owner can choose with whom they would like to share a ride.
Today, we have 1.3+ Million Carpoolers doing 14+ Million Carpool
rides, therefore saving 20,000+ Tonnes of Carbon Emissions. We are proud to state that seven out of Top10 IT Companies in India use our service. This has also resulted in 20%+ parking space Optimisation. How are you enabling shared and sustainable mobility? The challenge in a developing country like India is centred on traffic congestion, lack of solutions for the rising population and end-to-end connectivity. Majority of the daily commuters in urban cities travel to and from their workplace in their cars which are occupied by one person only. This has led to a surge in traffic density on our roads leading to elevated levels of congestion & pollution. Alternate means of commutation are inconvenient, untimely or expensive. The only sustainable solution is for the commuters themselves to become awakened citizens and carpool on their daily commute, thereby, addressing these challenges and contributing to the economy.
While most of us are aware of car-pooling, we do not practice it either because of issues in coordination or lack of car-pooling matches. We are helping every car owner to build a carpooling culture and enable the urban commuters to start sharing the empty seats in their car with colleagues. We have automated the end to end process of carpooling to make the whole experience hassle-free. We are building a large and self-sustainable carpooling network. This not only saves money on the consumer’s part but has helped saved thousands of tons of fuel and reduced carbon footprint by a mile. These environmental impacts provide higher levels of satisfaction than financial benefits. It also ensures optimal utility of vehicles. How different are you from the competitors? Ours is a real-time ridesharing app which connects the daily commuters with the car-pooling owners. The app helps user’s travel with friends, colleagues, and neighbors making their commute economical, eco-friendly, social, safe and convenient. Appended are the key differentiators that make Quick Ride unique from other car-pooling platforms: • The commuter can choose his/her preferred rider, unlike other car-pooling apps where any driver partner will be assigned to a passenger every day, thus ensuring the ride is secure. • The car owner can accept passengers request depending on the preferred pickup and drop location of the passenger (they can check if the passenger’s route is the same as the car owners). No extra earnings or deduction policy is applicable for this, unlike other carpooling apps where the driver partner has to pick and drop passenger from different locations. • Our payment system is unique and it is based on carpool
points. This system facilitates the users to offer car-pool some days and take the carpool rides from others using same points earned. • The platform is built on principles of no inconvenience for car-poolers. On your route, your time, your choice of people. This makes car-poolers to engage. • Enterprise security features with customisability to each enterprise requirements. • We’re the first one to introduce Features like Live ETA in car-pooling segment you can schedule ride instantly, Schedule in advance or schedule recurring rides. • We use advanced learning with analytics, to ensure a reliable match with carpoolers, route, time, the destination for a smooth overall experience. • We have the largest base of Female carpoolers across the country, reinforcing the Trusted Brand reputation. • Our marketing strategy is unique and it focuses on building carpooling culture than just downloading the product. What is the roadmap for the company in the coming years? Our vision is to increase the awareness about carpooling among Indian citizens and corporates and become the preferred mode of a daily commute across top metros in India. Today, motor vehicles are significant contributors to the poor air quality. Our goal is to reduce one million cars off the roads every day, thus, contributing to decongestion and reducing the pollution levels.
We’re operational in major metro cities such as DelhiNCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Trivandrum and Kochi. The goal is to create 1 Million carpooler network now in each metro city for hassle free commuting. Our vision is to increase the awareness about carpooling among Indian citizens and corporates and become the preferred mode for daily commute. Today, motor vehicles are significant contributors to the poor air quality. Our goal is to reduce one million cars off the roads every day, thus, contributing to decongestion and reducing the pollution levels by removing at least 5000 Ton Carbon Emission every day. We will continue to expand across all the developing cities in India to enable a hassle free travel for commuters.