Has Uber opened Pandora’s box by launching carpool in India?

Uber today announced the launch of its carpooling service in India, starting with Bangalore. Bangaloreans will thus join commuters in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Austin, and Paris who have been using UberPool from late last year. China has a People’s Uber which is ostensibly not for profit – that is, the drivers get paid but Uber doesn’t take a cut. But UberPool will also appear in China soon as “People’s Uber +”.

UberPool will match users taking the same route via Uber, and users can then choose the carpool option to share the ride and split the fare rather than having to pay full price. This will also reduce the number of cars on the congested roads of Bangalore, says Uber. The new service is in beta mode for now.

Cheaper rides and fewer cars will be welcome in Bangalore, but we can expect some new areas of conflict and confusion. Riders will have to get used to deviations from the route to accommodate those sharing the car. Waiting time may test their patience too, given some of the hard-to-locate addresses in India and ambivalent attitudes towards punctuality.

And what if the sharing party comes with an entourage? UberPool allows two passengers at each pickup location, for a maximum of four riders in a car, besides the driver. But it may take time for people to be educated on these nuances, and we can expect some arguments in the interim.

New security issues

On a more serious note, Uber has been under regulatory scrutiny in India since the alleged rape of a female passenger by an Uber driver in Delhi last year. Ride-sharing with unknown co-passengers may introduce new issues of security.

Nevertheless, India seems to be taking to ride-sharing. French platform BlaBlaCar, which announced a US$200 million funding round last week, says it is clocking 100 percent growth month-on-month in India, the only Asian country where it operates.

For both BlaBlaCar and UberPool, user profiling will become increasingly important. The French ride-sharing app claims to have 20 million verified members already in India. Uber on its part has a rating system for both drivers and riders.

Users may now have to pay close attention to the ratings of their co-passengers as well as drivers. And also be careful not to hit the carpool option when you want a quiet, single ride, to avoid unpleasant surprises along the way.