Uber Technologies is going to start its bike taxi service “UberMOTO” in Hyderabad from January, next year. An announcement in this context was made by the organization on Tuesday; however, UberMOTO is already being operated in Gurugram.
Earlier this service was also started in Bengaluru but it was discontinued after the Karnataka govt. said that the firm didn’t take all the permits needed to operate the service. Even Uber’s rival Ola had also shut down its bike taxi service in Bengaluru.
However, in Telangana, Uber has signed an MoU with the Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd, in order to provide last mile services to the commuters with the aid of UberMOTO after the metro services get started.
K.T. Rama Rao, Telangana’s IT and Panchayat Raj Minister, said this in a press briefing,
“We’re one of the most progressive states in India. We work closely with Uber in making sure that the best strategic services have been made available to lakhs and lakhs of people in Hyderabad. I believe the MoU with the Metro will be a great service because the last mile is always a challenge.”
The amount that Uber will be charging is – Rs. 20 for first 3 Kms and after that, Rs. 5 per Km. When UberMOTO was first started by the firm, the experts were of the opinion that it might increase the consumer base of Uber due to low prices; however, it would definitely have an impact on the car taxi business of the company.
Uber has already sold its China business to the local rival Didi Kuaidi and therefore, it can’t afford to let Ola take the lead in the Indian market. Uber is in process of developing the Bengaluru technology centre as its centre for product innovation while it has second largest number of employees in Hyderabad.
There are many other bike taxi operators in India such as Rapido, which is owned and operated by Roppen Transportation Services Pvt. Ltd and Gurugram based Bikxie, Baxi and M-Taxi. Bike taxis have been very popular in the Southeast Asia and Singapore based GrabTaxi and Go-Jek of Indonesia are few big firms of this market.