Cabs of both aggregators were available mostly on sharing basis in the morning hours; however after 2 pm, as the autos returned to the streets of Mumbai, so did the cab fleet



The rush of people seen outside Borivli station as autos remained off road yesterday morning. Pic/Nimesh Dave

Even as more than 80,000 auto rickshaws chose to stay off roads yesterday in a protest lodged against Ola and Uber, both these app-based cab services did not resort to their ‘weapon of choice’, which is surge pricing.

This is particularly surprising because until now, it has been observed that during a strike or any opportunity, both these aggregators hike their pricing right up to 5 times of the original fares.

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However, yesterday’s scene was a bit different as either the cars were not available or they were available only on share-basis. To add to the woes, the share-basis was at limited locations and showed a wait time of over 15 minutes, as against less than 5 minutes on regular days.

When this mid-day reporter tried booking a cab through both the apps before 12 pm, the interface showed ‘no cars available’.

When he finally got through the booking option around 2 pm, the time for the cab to reach him showed anywhere between 3 to 10 minutes. This was also around the time when the rickshaws started hitting the roads.

“It is possible that these vehicles did not ply fearing violence and damage,” said a RTO officer on condition of anonymity.

The sparse presence of these cabs, along with the strike hit the commuters on both western and eastern suburbs of the city.

No surge

Spokespersons of both Ola and Uber refused to comment on surge pricing not coming into play. “There is no comment that we can offer at this stage,” said Anand Subramaniam, Head of Corporate Communication, Ola Cabs despite sending an email on this matter. Meanwhile, Uber’s reply was lengthier where it stated that all their cars were plying on the road.

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“All our vehicles were plying and so it showed that no cars are available. Had people waited, the app would have shown a vehicle nearby,” said an official from Uber.

While both the companies remained mum about surge pricing, a RTO officer offered an explanation.

“Today there is a way to control the surge pricing which otherwise was working on algorithms wherein there was an automatic increase in fares when the demand rose,” said the officer.

The whole idea behind getting the City Taxi Scheme is to control the surge pricing.