Ride-sharing stages have become well known in a nearly brief time frame. They have not just achieved a critical change in the methodology of metropolitan public transportation however have likewise offered a chance to the riders to make a fair pay whenever the timing is ideal. These stages are, be that as it may, yet to be directed and address wellbeing concerns raised on occasion by the partners.
Public transportation in Kathmandu is awful, most definitely. Most open vehicles are packed, and workers barely arrive at their objections on schedule. The city’s thin roads don’t approach public transportation. Furthermore that is the place where ride-sharing applications have upset metropolitan drive.
There are a huge number of individuals in Kathmandu who neither own a private vehicle nor love to go in broad daylight transports. Various ride-sharing stages have made a problem free excursion in the city’s thin rear entryways, and furthermore to the individuals who will use their bikes and four-wheelers and bring in some cash.
Notwithstanding rehashed protests by taxi business people and crackdowns by the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division and the Branch of Transportation (DoTM), the public authority revoked its choice to stop ride-sharing administrations as these stages are massively well known in the city.
Traveling in a public vehicle is often troublesome. Starting from the front door, one has to fight against the molecule-tight congestion. Furthermore, “surplus” threats like harassment and pickpocketing come underway. To evade such problems, hailing a private vehicle like a bike, scooter, taxi, or cab seems to be a wonderful alternative. However, their pricey fairs have been rather discouraging. As an optimum solution to such problems, some startups have been made, whose primary motto has been to provide reliable commuting services at an affordable price. Though serving the same purpose, the services, user-friendliness, app reliability & user interface are the factors that make different ride hailing apps in Nepal unique amongst the others.
How can it function?
Most ride-sharing stages offer their administrations on the web. To get the help, a client needs to introduce an application from Google’s Play Store and Apple’s Application Store. Utilizing the cell phone’s GPS administration, one can essentially stamp the objective area and solicitation for a ride. As the framework consequently computes the charges, the two gatherings don’t need to deal. The riders are appraised by the travelers dependent on the nature of administration, which, the organizations guarantee, assists with keeping up with discipline among the riders. A few stages have likewise offered disconnected booking, spot booking and telephone booking offices. “The people who are inexperienced with cell phones can exploit our spot and telephone booking offices,” said Pratik Subba, the Chief of Lozoom. The travelers can pay either in real money or through online on most stages.
The riders, then again, need to enlist on the stage. They additionally need to introduce an alternate application produced for the riders where they get demands for rides.
For their keen contemplations to give trustworthy offices, they have gotten in abundance of appreciation from the valley people. Notwithstanding, there have been very some politically charged developments against the ride hailing or ride-sharing stages in Nepal; particularly from taxi associations and such. However their activity is totally legitimate and surprisingly the High Court has approved it over and over, such private gatherings have been “badgering” such ride hailing administrations. Here we will talk about such ride hailing applications in Nepal, which are cheered for their admirable endeavors to facilitate the transportation.
1. Pathao
Taking the Nepalese ride hailing industry by storm is Pathao. With its ingeniously catchy name and an international stature backing it up, it was quite amazing to see how quickly Pathao managed to conquer the Nepalese roads. It is a Bangladeshi startup and the first digital business to go international. The company started its operational journey in Kathmandu, Nepal since 25th September 2018, with a 24×7 service.
Though Pathao has a wide range of services including ride hailing (two-wheelers, taxi), parcels, food delivery, and e-commerce delivery in its home country of Bangladesh, it started with only two-wheeler service in the valley. However, Pathao’s portfolio has since expanded to car-sharing as well from August 9, 2019. And the company promises other facilities joining shortly. Pathao has also set speed limits to its partners; which is set at an average of 15km/hr during daytime and 40km/hr during the night.
The process of taking rides on Pathao is fairly standard and simple. After giving location permissions, the app recognizes where you are and you can either type in your destination or pin it using the embedded map. Finally, once you confirm the ride request, the cost is calculated and you can request a ride from the nearby riders. The process is the same for renting cars too. Let’s briefly go through pricing. In terms of two-wheelers, Pathao levies a base charge of Rs. 15 and Rs. 25 per every km of the ride.
Moving on, things get a little different when it comes to four-wheelers. Here, the standard price is an exact Rs. 100 and Rs. 39 for every km of the ride. Additionally, “a rupee per minute of the ride” is added to the net cost. While that does welcome the probability of vulnerabilities from the ride-sharer, Pathao says they have proper measures at the place to eliminate or at least minimize them. Every single ride is tracked by GPS in real-time by the company to prevent any misbehaviors from its riders. As a customer, you can also send your live location to your friends for an added layer of security. Getting to payments, you can either pay cash upfront or through digital wallets like eSewa, Khalti, etc.
2. Tootle
Tootle, like Pathao, is a popular ride-sharing service in Kathmandu that lets the users summon a two-wheeler driver to transport the passenger. And since motorcycle/scooter is the designated vehicle for transportation, the fair for the commute is usually lower than the four-wheeled taxis, which is unavailable in the company’s list of services.
To get along with its services, one needs to log in to the Tootle app and select the destination. While confirming the destination, along with the travel cost, there is a mode to select the time of departure. With the booking made, the Tootle Partner contacts you at his earliest convenience. And with the establishment of the agreement, the person picks you up from your location and drops you off at your destination. The modes of payment for the travel could be cash or Tootle balance. The Tootle balance can be topped up using eSewa, SCT MoCo, Tootle Voucher, Khalti, or IME Payment.
There is also the Tootle Partner app for people, who own a two-wheeler and seek to make an income with a feeling to help on another side. However, being a Tootle Partner is not an instantaneous process. One need to make registration by filling up some personal details and upload a photo of the Driving License. The verification process takes around 24 hours.
Despite the number of roads and myriads of vehicles, traveling through public transportation has not yet been easy in Nepal. And the initiative of Tootle to ease such complications is definitely praise-worthy. Though the service was limited to the time frame of 6 AM to 9 PM, Tootle has gone 24 x 7 since November 2019. One has to be cautious to cope with the threats if things go wrong. There is no predefined speed limit for the Tootle ride, so there will be an additional risk if the rider turned out to be reckless. Furthermore, the service is not always reliable. There are chances that the drivers could simply ignore your request.
3. Sarathi
At the time of its conception in 2017, Sarathi started as an offline cab-hailing service that operated through an on-call basis through its call center or website in Kathmandu. It had been quite some time since the Sarathi Cab website promised to release the Sarathi app in the app stores and they delivered on it after a long-long time. Unlike Pathao and Tootle, Sarathi is a cab-exclusive ride hailing platform.
Aside from the exclusivity, the services of Sarathi Cab is nothing different from the others. One can make the request for a ride via the and an available driver approaches the interesting ones for transportation. The fare for the commute is also the same in the Sarathi cab. It goes along the rates declared by the government body; on the meter. It also has 24 x 7 service and you can make payments through either cash, card, or a digital wallet.
4. Easy Taxi Nepal
Next up, we have Easy Taxi Nepal. Developed in collaboration with Uptyaka Taxi Bewasahi Tatha Chalak Sewa Samaj, the company has around 5000 taxi drivers associated inside its platform. And as the name suggests, this is an on-demand taxi-only platform. But like every other ride hailing platform in the list, Easy Taxi Nepal operates on GPS technology to locate and connect ride seekers and nearby drivers.
And once you give location permissions to the app, you can begin your ride-booking journey. Just select your destination and the type of cab you’d like to order, and that’s about it. There is even an option to track the arrival of your ordered cab in real-time inside the app’s map. You can make payments through either physical currency, or use digital payment platforms. When it comes to pricing, Easy Taxi Nepal has a fairly standard policy and is comparable to other similar platforms; though it hasn’t entirely been made transparent.
5. Eddy Cab
Developed by Mobile Application Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Eddy Cab claims to be the first one in the business. However, their system is not so pleasing. Interested ones are often disheartened just because they do not get the verification code to complete their registration. But once the registration is complete, it is easy to get along with the services. What’s more? The service is available 24 x 7 to all the customers in Kathmandu.
After the selection of destination on the app, all the available cabs on proximity are displayed along with their distance and rating gave by the customers as per their service quality. These factors prove to be a worthy factor while choosing a driver for the ride. Once the list of available drivers is displayed, the interested ones should select one among them within the designated time. This feature is quite good for the drivers, who are always in a hurry to pick another passenger. The Eddy Cab accepts only cash payment. The Eddy Cab fare also demands an extra Rs. 16.95 as a service charge of which Rs. 15 goes to the company and the remaining Rs. 1.95 is 13% VAT amount to the levied charge.
