A ride share that wasn’t so smart

A French startup is offering long-distance ride sharing to Indians. Sunday Times experiences what it’s like to take a lift in the digital age
Hitchhiking seems rather archaic in 2015. But call it ride-sharing and manage it on an app, and you have a unicorn. BlaBlaCar works on this model of sharing long-distance rides while paying only for the fuel cost incurred.The French firm entered the Indian market in January this year, and claims to have helped share 3.5 lakh seats over a distance of 1.7 crore kilometres in the first six months.
So I decided to hitch a ride — from Delhi to Agra — to see what the fuss was all about. The journey of close to 210km typically takes about 3.5 hours in a bus on the Yamuna Expressway. A seat in an AC bus costs anything between Rs 350 and Rs 550. The BlaBlaCar app showed about 3-4 rides on the average weekday, at varying times. I chose the earliest one, at 5.30am offered by a certain Mr Shukla for Rs 450. The rate was for Delhi to Agra, however, Mr Shukla’s journey would be from Gurgaon to Gorakhpur. Some quick maths revealed that the fuel cost for the Delhi-Agra journey would be Rs 655, to be split among three parties travelling in the XUV 500. “The car owner is given a recommended price and he’s allowed to hike it by 15-20% depending on the car’s mileage and detours for pick-up,” says Raghav Gupta, India country manager of BlaBlaCar.
The obvious question to consider for a first-time hitchhiker is safety.
Mr Shukla said he was an engineer who was travelling with his brother and father. The app revealed the number of his Facebook friends and flagged his LinkedIn account, phone number and email as verified. I couldn’t access the actual social media profiles. However, we realized each other’s apprehensions and decided to exchange photos of ID proofs on WhatsApp before the journey. In other words, a jugaad verification.
On D-Day, while I stood shivering on a cold Delhi morning at a secluded spot for the pick-up, it occurred to me that there was no guarantee my ride was indeed coming. The app doesn’t allow booking of a journey, only messaging and calling between interested parties. But the car did pull up and the ride was full of surprises.
Mr Shukla did not turn up, but his father and his brother did, with the latter driving the car. Let’s call him Shukla Jr. There was also a fellow traveller, also found through BlaBlaCar, a certain Mr Roy who was a veteran of sorts on the ride-sharing service. “I’ve used the app 10 to 12 times for last-minute travel plans. On the last day, flights are very expensive and train tickets difficult to get. Also, bus rides are too bumpy. I catch up on some sleep in a car,” said Mr Roy, before dozing off almost instantly. A later chat revealed he was paying Rs 1,900 for his journey to Gorakhpur, an amount comparable to the cost of a bus ticket, to attend a family wedding.
The SUV’s GPS was put to full use to wade through the capital’s streets until we reached the expressway. Finding the way together almost felt like a college hangout and put a lot of nerves to rest. Once on the highway, the car quickly took off, sometimes touching speeds of 140km/hr (obviously way over the speed limit). At one point, we almost ran over what looked like a jackal crossing the road. Shukla Jr wasn’t much of a talker, as was indicated on the app, albeit originally for his brother. The app lets you declare your personality traits. A rating ranging from ‘Bla’ to ‘Bla Bla Bla’ suggests how chatty you can get on a ride. Music preferences, and openness to pets and smoking in the car, are also dialled in while creating a profile.
Given our cruising speed I knew we would reach our destination quickly, but when I saw an Agra signboard just 1 hour 45 minutes into the journey, it still managed to befuddle me. Shukla Jr was confident we were still a few miles away. One hand typing away at the GPS, he sped on as if in a high-speed cop chase. It was only when he stopped to ask for directions that we were told we had left the city of the Taj Mahal 15km behind. “Going back would cost the rest of us a lot of time. Kindly get off here and take an auto,” he told me, polite finality in his tone. I paid the not-so-modest hitchhiking fee and squeezed into an auto of eight tottering its way to a sleeping city. The departure time had been flexible, so was the arrival point.
While BlaBlaCar has certainly provided an alternative, a cheap one mostly, to travel. But it leans heavily on trust in a country increasingly worried about safety. Yet, it’s not the only such service around. In November last year, Tripda was the first of the kind to enter India. On paper, both offer the same services, except Tripda features a ‘Ladies only’ option to cater to women travellers.
The BlaBlaCar app allows for two-way ratings to be posted, with a comment attached, to assist travellers in selecting car owners. Needless to say, my rating wasn’t five-star. Having said that, this one ride isn’t representative of all BlaBlaCar rides, let alone smartphone hitchhiking on the whole. Besides, in these odd times of odd-even vehicle alternating policies, ride-sharing may just be the solution to all car troubles.
As for me, I’d rather have a bumpy bus ride instead.