New Delhi: Transportation mobile app Ola today launched autorickshaws in 12 more cities, taking the service to a total of 24 cities across the country.
Ola said it is targeting to serve at least two million daily rides by end of 2017 through its app by getting on-board hundreds of thousands of autorickshaw drivers on its platform over the year in these cities.
"Ola has over 1,00,000 auto rickshaws registered on its platform across 24 cities and plans to launch in more cities in the coming months," the company said in a statement.
The new cities that were launched Bhopal, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Kota, Surat, Madurai, Guwahati, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Jodhpur, Visakhapatnam and Udaipur.
The company said its autos are available 24x7 in all the 24 cities and it has also launched a new billing system that will record the details of the trip including time of booking, distance travelled and fare payable, either in cash or through Ola Money.
"Users can request a bill on completion of their ride from the Ola app and pay for their rides with Ola money," it added.
In the past one year, Ola said it has brought a convenient hailing experience for users and predictable and continuous demand for driver entrepreneurs, helping them earn as much as 40 per cent additional revenue on a daily basis.
"Autos as an ubiquitous mode of transportation in Indian cities, already serve hundreds of millions of users everyday. By bringing them on the Ola app, we are transforming the mobility experience for users and improving the revenue opportunity for auto driver-partners," Nitesh Prakash, Senior Director, Operations at Ola said.
Meanwhile, Uber has cut fares by up to 22 per cent in 10 non-metro cities including Pune and Ahmedabad, a move that will intensify competition with domestic rival, Ola.
While fares have been slashed by 9 per cent in cities like Indore and Nagpur, the same has been cut by 22 per cent in Jodhpur and Udaipur for its affordable service, uberGO, the company said in a blog post.
Uber will now charge a base fare of Rs 25 instead of Rs 40 in Udaipur and Jodhpur. Also, the per kilometer charge has been reduced to Rs 7 from Rs 8. The fare cut would bring the cost down to Rs 5 per km in cities like Vizag, Nagpur, Indore and Ahmedabad. The other cities where tariff has been reduced include Pune, Ajmer, Mangalore and Thiruvananthapuram.
Uber has presence in over 361 cities in 66 countries. In India, it has services in 26 cities, the highest compared to any other country outside the US.
