Future of commuting experience...
Post paid commuting service, just like telecom
Last month, the taxi I booked for airport was cancelled by aggregators at the last minute due to shortage of taxies - the reason being OLA and Uber drivers went for strike and hence heavy demand for taxis. I started to understand about the inefficiencies built into the system and finally getting offloaded to the operators of taxies. Also understand that more than 50% of the taxi time is wasted waiting for a ride and more than 20% of the KM run are dead leading to inefficiencies. The aggregators are typically providing technology to connect commuter and taxi operators on transactional basis (from user perspective).
I look forward for a new business model where mobility service providers takes end to end responsibility for transportation needs of individuals and fulfil the needs in most economic and fastest way for the given level of luxury.
There are good lessons to learn from Telecom industry. We do not buy SMS from Airtel (for example), voice from Vodafone and use internet from Aircel and on daily use basis. The service providers provide a bundled services, for example: 120 min free local call, additional calls at 1 paise per second, SMS at 1 rupees , National roaming free, Data at 2 mbps, 10 GB data etc. on monthly basis. I look forward for mobility service providers in providing mobility services including Parking, public transportation, taxis as a bundled services as both pre-paid and post-paid services just like telecom industry. The customer acquisition would lead to more predictable nature of its business. This would help the providers to plan their resources optimally and grow as a sustainable business.
What if, one can drive from home with a reserved parking at Metro station, then catch a metro train and get down close to his destination, take a taxi waiting for him and reach his destination– all as a post-paid on monthly subscription basis, just like a post-paid telecom customer. Wouldn’t that be cool?
