It seems like carpooling by cab aggregators in India has been quite a hit with consumers in India. And the most popular ones, Uber and Ola, have been claiming to save a lot of fuel and traffic congestion in the cities they have their carpooling services in.
In a recent blog post, Uber has claimed that its UberPool service in Mumbai has been able to save 936,000 litres of fuel and has reduced carbon emissions in Mumbai by 2,662 metric tonnes.
With its presence in six Indian cities, it claims to have saved 3.44 million litres of fuel, reduced 8.12 million kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions after logging 73.38 million kilometers of travel with UberPool.
“Not only has uberPOOL been up to 50% cheaper than uberGO, but also it has helped get more people into fewer cars—making it a good option for people’s wallets and our city,” the company said in its blog.
As per a report in Inc42, for UberPool, in terms of cities, Mumbai topped with 30% of the trips coming from there, followed by Hyderabad at 29%, Pune at 20%, Chennai at 18% and Kolkata at 15%. The maximum number of rides taken till date by a traveller in Delhi is equivalent to 1,136 trips.
Ola Share, on the other hand, announced on Monday that its carpooling service Ola Share has registered a 500% growth over the last one year with Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata being the biggest users of Ola Share.
Ola claims that since its inception, Ola Share has saved over seven million litres of fuel and reduced carbon dioxide emissions over 12 million kilograms.
Vishal Kaul, COO at Ola said, "Ola Share is one of our flagship products and is poised to bring down traffic congestion on roads, which means that people in our cities will spend less time in traffic. We have seen a high uptake for the category on both the customer as well as the driver partner side - that has been a key element in its success."
The company is encouraging commuters to share their rides by selling "Share Pass", a subscription product that allows customers to take Ola Share rides at a flat fixed price at Re 1 starting from June 5 to June 11.
Uber launched its share service UberPool in India in September 2015 in Bengaluru, while Ola share was launched in October 2015 and it now available is 26 cities.
(With inputs from IANS)