This intercity ridesharing startup wants everyone to save money, reduce carbon emissions

After a tedious week, the idea of driving back from work to one’s hometown isn’t appealing. While some white collar workers drive their own cars, commuting is hardly a breeze. Imagine the slow moving traffic on highways, as cars full of commuters clog lanes. Hiring a taxi may not be feasible for many, as long distance commutes yield hefty fares. That leaves them with the least desirable option – the bus.

“After standing in the queue to buy a bus ticket, the painful wait for the intercity bus to arrive begins,” Shirish Gone, founder and CEO of GoTogether, told Tech in Asia. Thousands of people are often stranded at the stations en route to their hometowns, since buses and trains are the only affordable options.

He added, “Driving almost 145km from Hyderabad to Warangal is also costly for a single person on the weekends. Ridesharing appeared to be a viable option since the cost of fuel gets distributed. And the journey is much more comfortable.”

The key benefits of sharing a ride are reduction of traffic, lesser carbon emissions, lower fuel costs per head, and also interactions with fellow travelers.

There are many ridesharing mobile apps in India. Pune-based Carpooladda caters to IT professionals. Bangalore-based Lets Drive Along uses a point-based system for carpooling. A few more similar services tie-up directly with select companies to provide carpooling.

Most Indian carpool services are restricted to commutes within the city. But there is hardly one for intercity travels. Gone started a ridesharing app as a side project in September 2013 while he was still working as a senior iOS engineer at Mutual Mobile in Hyderabad. He teamed up with his then colleagues to test it for intercity travels.

Walk before you run

In June 2014, Gone quit his full time job to focus on his app. In the following month, the company participated in the MIT Global Startup Labs India 2014 to get a product validated with helpful feedback.

From July, GoTogether assembled a team that included an Android developer and two colleagues from his previous company who continued their full time jobs. Paying for everything out of their pockets, the GoTogether team released the app for iOS and Android on August 7.

The app aims to minimize intercity cost by distributing the overall expenditure between people who share the rides. Targeted at IT professionals and students, the app requires registration through email. Verification of the mobile phone number is mandatory. The user’s number shows up upon posting a ride or claiming one.

The pilot stage

A pilot program was launched on August 15 to test the product and the team selected the founder’s home route – Hyderabad to Warangal.

The company worked closely with a couple of colleges and select companies while continuing marketing activities at the bus stops. The pilot ended on October 1, and the app registered 700 users, 90 vehicles, and 65 shared rides.

Now the team is engrossed in ironing out some key issues such as adding a payment gateway to enable cashless distribution of the expenditure once the ride completes. Talks with taxi companies are in progress to get more registered vehicles on board.

At an attractive cost proposition of INR1.5 (US$0.02) per kilometer charged to passengers, car owners can reduce the cost of their travel by about 80 percent. The company plans to earn money by charging a 10 to 12 percent service tax per ride.

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