France’s BlaBlaCar comes to India with ride-sharing between cities

While taxi apps like Uber and Ola find themselves in a regulatory quagmire in Indian cities, a new car pooling service has just come in for rides from one city to another. France-based BlaBlaCar launched in India today, its first stop in Asia. This follows the arrival late last year of Tripda from Brazil, another ride-sharing marketplace.

“India, with its young, highly connected population, and multiple major urban hubs separated by long distances, has great potential for ridesharing. Chronically overcrowded transport infrastructure forces travellers to book their train or bus tickets weeks in advance, while the high price of fuel makes long-distance car travel often unaffordable. BlaBlaCar will make last-minute city-to-city travel both available and affordable. Car-owners will be able to offer seats to co-travelers, so they can travel together and share fuel costs,” says Nicholas Brusson, co-founder of BlaBlaCar.

BlaBlaCar connects drivers who have empty seats in their cars for a long distance ride with co-travellers. The charge for the co-traveller is limited to sharing the fuel and running costs; so it’s not meant to be a profit-making avenue for drivers. The company usually takes a 10 percent cut from what the co-traveller pays or driver receives. BlaBlaCar had a US$100 million funding round last year, and operates in 13 countries in Europe. India is its first market outside Europe.

BlaBlaCar will initially operate out of Delhi and its satellite town of Gurgaon, connecting cities in north India. Delhi is where Uber got into trouble last month after the arrest of a driver for raping a young woman, and still faces a ban as regulators insist on compliance with their rules.

Car pooling services like BlaBlaCar, however, have yet to come under that kind of scrutiny. BlaBlaCar’s co-founder makes a distinction between a marketplace model and a taxi app. “At Uber, you don’t choose your driver,” says Brusson. “At Blablacar, there’s a two-way community where you need acceptance from both sides.”

See: Can Rocket Internet’s new carpooling startup hit the ground running in Taiwan?