With the downpour, the pricing surge

Ahmedabad: On a normal day, taking a cab to work is a breeze. You book it on your app, hop-on from the pick-up point and hop-off at the destination and meanwhile, remain worry free about having to battle the adverse weather and traffic snarls. But on rainy days and literally so, the same convenience costs you a fortune, thanks to the surge pricing policy adopted by most app-based cab companies. As heavy rains lashed Ahmedabad during the peak hours on Tuesday morning, leaving several stretches of main roads waterlogged and people to the mercy of traffic woes, commuters dependent on cabs were forced to shell out three times the normal fare to get to work.

“Travelling the 17km distance to work costs me up to Rs 150 for a one-way trip usually. When I checked the cab fares on Tuesday morning, it showed a price of Rs 550, which is obnoxiously overpriced. I asked a friend who stays near home to drop me halfway. It’s time there’s a cap imposed on surge pricing because this is fleecing customers for no good reason,” said Sharad Sinha, an Ahmedabad-based professional.

Similar was the case with Disha Patel, a resident of Prahladnagar, who paid Rs 295 to travel to Ashram Road by cab. “A cab normally costs me Rs 110 to reach work. However, it was heavily raining in the morning and I didn’t have any alternate mode of transport to reach work. Each time when it rains, it is an ordeal finding a cab and the surge pricing just adds to it,” she said.

Surge pricing appears to be the bane of everyone who takes a cab. To address this, a social media community, Local Circles, recently made a representation to CM Vijay Rupani, seeking to impose a cap on surge pricing.

A lot of people also took to social media to vent their frustration about being overcharged, not just by cabbies but even for food delivery order. “After cab companies, app-based food delivery platforms have followed suit by imposing surge price for delivering during rain. This is unacceptable and these conditions have to be factored in when you calculate delivery charge,” said a city-based professional on condition of anonymity.