GURGAON: You can now hop on to a
bike taxi
and ride all the way to Delhi from Gurgaon. Rideji, the fifth player to enter the bike taxi arena, launched its service on Monday. The first to work on a predefined fare model,
Rideji
will tell you how much your ride will cost before you hop on.
Founded by Vineet Yadav and Mukesh Rana, the service has been running pilots and testing the market since December. Yadav said he was first introduced to the concept in China, which has a huge unorganised bike taxi market. "We wanted to get acquainted with ground realities of the industry, get a grasp on rider behaviour, before we hit the roads. We're currently operating in Gurgaon and Dwarka with 38 riders, and plan to introduce another 150 bikes in the next month or so," said Yadav. Rana said the company is working on a pre-defined fare model which uses an algorithm to identify the fare and inform customers. "With pre-defined fare, the customer will never feel tricked," he said.
In Delhi, Rideji will be the only bike taxi operator. Under the 'rideshare' model, they will run on white number plates instead of yellow. "Though others are using yellow (commercial) plates, they don't have commercial licenses as there's no law regulating two-wheelers," said Yadav.
The duo is internally funded and said they're already clocking 380 rides a day, with most traffic being hailed. Rideji bikes are available outside Huda City Centre and Sikanderpur Metro stations. Rideji also works as an aggregator, where anyone with a bike and necessary documents can register as a rider or pillion.
The public, too, appear to be warming up to the concept. Ravi Kumar, a software engineer, said, "I take a Baxi every day to and from office. It costs half as much as an auto and is faster."