Uber and Ola in India were recently ordered to stop their sharing services, Pool and Share respectively, in the state of Karnataka. Both the companies have been aggressively pushing to gather support for their sharing services. However, their problems aren’t just limited to the suspension of car pooling service.

In other parts of the country, the two companies are facing backlash from their network of drivers allegedly over ‘false promises’. The drivers across multiple cities are protesting because according to them, the two companies made huge promises when they started working but now they are struggling to make ends meet. Drivers in the city of Hyderabad went out begging at traffic lights to show their plight.

It was the same story in capital city Delhi as well. Protesting drivers are demanding that the cab aggregators increase the fares to a more realistic number. This has also caused disruption for daily commuters and travellers looking to move across the city. According to the drivers, they expect the cab hailing companies to offer better fares, lesser working hours and insurance. Along with this, the drivers are also expecting the cab aggregators to slow down with the addition of drivers on their networks and end the car pooling service as it affects their earnings. It is yet to be seen how the two major cab hailing platforms respond to the drivers.

Popular radio cab service Meru recently launched its own app based cab hailing service at comparatively higher prices to go against Uber and Ola. On the other side, auto aggregator Jugnoo jumped on the opportunity and quickly announced the launch of its own cab hailing service in addition to the autos offered on its platform. Both the companies claim to offer prices that are sustainable in the long run unlike what Uber and Ola are offering.

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Uber Technologies Inc. has made room for transparencies as it would just quote the ride fares upfront. The lightning bolt pop-ups that expect the rider to agree to the surge pricing would be done away with. The pricing would still fluctuate with demand however the price would be known earlier, no math no surprise.

uberPOOL exacted fares two years ago when it was launched and gradually it was noticed that the riders didn’t prefer uberPOOL because it was cheaper but because the prices were calculated before booking the ride. Although it’s quite possible the other way around too.

“Knowing how much a ride will cost in advance is clearly something riders appreciate: today uberPOOL accounts for over 20 percent of all rides globally,” a post in Uber’s newsroom says.

This feature had been in a testing phase in certain cities of the US and major cities of India since April and it was taken into account that passengers were more likely to book an Uber in the future if they are able to see the trip pricing upfront. The price would be calculated depending upon the number of riders pooling, the drivers available nearby, and the distance to be covered. There would be times that the rider would pay the atrocious amount in those truly horrid times of the day but all fair to scale.

The new rollout would also be accompanied by the feature wherein the rider could change the destination in the middle of the ride and the rider would get the change of price notification in the app. Even if the driver finds an alternate route due to other reasons to the same destination, the rider would pay the price he agreed upon earlier while signing up for the ride.

So one could now book rides and know the prices in advance just like in hotel and airline bookings. This feature would benefit the riders globally making it a more transparent ecosystem.

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Uber, with the objective of getting more people in less cars, is rolling out UberPool across new geographies. The service especially makes sense in regions where congestion is a major issue and public transport isn’t as good as it should be. That is why only in few months, services like UberPool by Uber or Ola Share by their local rival Ola Cabs makes lot of sense in India and received good response from users.

Now Uber has launched the UberPool service in Manila, the capital city of Philippines, to tackle the congestion issues and offer a better option for urban transport. The service costs a quarter less than the standard UberX fares. To increase adoption, it offers upfront pricing so that travellers know how much they will have to pay before they book so that they aren’t deterred by the unpredictable prices. This could be an indication that they are trying to attract urban commuters who use public transport options like buses or shuttle services and are price conscious as well.

Uber has made bold claims about how the service has reduced the CO2 emissions by getting Uber users to pool however there have been arguments that most of the usage is coming from people who were previously relying on public transport and only a small fraction comes from the active users of UberX. Many have been ditching public transport in favour of these pooling services and while arguments vary about the environmental impact, there is no denying that such services find a right balance by efficient resource utilisation at a good price point. After getting good response in Bangalore and NCR, Uber rolled out the service to more cities in India.

With the promise of better environment and less traffic, UberPool has received support from Philippines Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board for the Manila launch. However, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for UberPool worldwide. In India, the pool service faced regulatory issues as the cab registration didn’t allow drivers to pick multiple bookings. The news of an UberPool passenger attacking his co-passenger in UK was doing rounds of the internet putting a question on the added layer of checks required to ensure safety of everyone.

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