Driven by giant strides in AI and other technologies, carpooling has turned smarter and seamless, with a huge potential to marry comfort with commerce. But trapped in a twister of high taxes, yellow board registrations, permit issues and intense competition, taxi drivers see this is an existential threat to their business. Is there a middle path?
News in a section of the media carpooling is “banned” in Bengaluru last week triggered a massive outcry. Commuters who had adopted the system, both informally and through aggregator apps to smartly outwit the city’s notorious commute chaos, were outraged. The State transport department’s ban was dubbed ‘kneejerk,’ thoughtless and unilateral.
Only temporary relief
But, has Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy’s clarification that there is no ban for now and it would eventually be applied only to white board vehicles cleared the confusion? The relief is only temporary and the raging debate has put the spotlight on the need for urgent systemic changes. The question is: Can old rules be tweaked to let both traditional taxis and new age carpooling apps coexist and thrive?
The time might be ripe for a policy shift with the focus on the big elephant in the room: Yellow boards. But before addressing that, a query: Why are taxi operators feeling so threatened by the new carpooling apps?
“We have no issue with the informal carpooling system that involves friends, family and neighbours. Our demand is that carpooling aggregators, who use AI and other tech to discover and connect commuters, should be brought under a regulatory mechanism,” says Radhakrishna Holla, General Secretary of the Bengaluru Tour Taxi Owners Association.
‘Cash transactions is business’
The aggregator apps, he says, are not NGOs or charitable trusts. “They use privately-owned vehicles, even cash is paid online. Once they do that, it becomes a business. Offering free service and turning it into a business are different. Cash transactions, one rupee or a thousand rupees, make it a business. The vehicles used too should then be commercial, with yellow boards,” he explains.
Once the carpooling platforms are regulated, safety systems such as SOS, owner and passenger data collection, verification of owner vehicle documents will come into picture. As Mr. Radhakrishna puts it, “Vehicle Location Tracking, panic buttons, passenger accident safety, GST for payment and a whole lot of rules that are now mandated for taxis will be applied to their cars too. There are at least 25 rules to comply with.”
On the other hand, Sathya Sankaran from Citizens for Sustainability (CiFoS) argues that yellow boards vehicles have outlived their utility. “They are causing more harm than good. The carpooling controversy in Bengaluru brought out our inability to rethink the rules when faced with behaviour that run contrary to those rules,” he contends.
The aggregators essentially help people discover carpooling passengers through an app. But the main bone of contention is about a charge being levied for passenger discovery and payments between the driver and car-poolers. Rules framed under the Motor Vehicles Act permit only vehicles registered as commercial vehicles displaying a yellow number plate to operate for any kind of money exchange.
‘Inherently unfair’
Mr. Sathya’s point is this: The rules have not stopped last-mile food and grocery delivery services to operate with white board private vehicles. Delivery agents are also now riding electric vehicles with green plates, but there are no green / yellow combinations. “Historically, auto rickshaws and taxis have been registered with a yellow plate. There is an inherent unfairness in this treatment that makes taxis ferrying passengers go through extra norms forcing them to revolt,” he notes.
This is very apparent in employee transport vehicles. As Mr. Radhakrishna explains, vehicles operated on contract by one company are mandated to take only their employees. “But unregulated carpooling vehicles take employees to different companies located at different levels of the same building. We take vehicle loans, pay high taxes, for separate driving licenses and Fitness Certificates every two years, following all norms. This is like cheating those who are under a proper, regulated system.”
Passenger safety isues
The solution, Mr. Sathya insists, is to get rid of the yellow board and associated processes for passenger taxis. “My point is not to mandate yellow boards for carpooling vehicles, but to get the others out of the yellow board system. What is the point of a yellow board for the passenger? I sit in a car, and am not bothered about the colour of the board. I have to trust the driver. So do a KYC (Know Your Customer) on him,” he says.
However, taxi operators are not convinced. They argue that their passenger safety is ensured through integrated systems such as Vehicle Location Tracking and Panic Button. Says an operator, “In employee transport, all staffers go in one vehicle with a separate permit. But in carpooled vehicles, if a male passenger kidnaps a female co-passenger, there is no way to track. A driver might say he is going to Electronic City but would cross Hosur checkpost and become untraceable.”
Decoupling driver from vehicle
So decouple the vehicle from the driver, suggests Mr. Sathya. “Passenger safety is not the function of the car, but the driver’s. If you want to do a KYC on the (carpooling) driver, do it. But do it through a seamless online process, no standing in any office. Do it as professionally as passport registrations.”
Yellow board taxis have to certify and do constant checks on the driver to prevent untoward incidents. Yet this has not been a fool-proof system. In many cases, the vehicle driver and owner are different. The recently launched Metro Mitra Auto service could be a model, where passengers scan a QR code to get the driver credentials. Tech platforms that enable passenger discovery could be asked to do a KYC on the carpooling drivers and prominently display the details both on the app and on the vehicle, like auto rickshaws.
Does carpooling really decongest?
Carpooling, with its proven potential to reduce use of multiple cars, has often been cited as one of the means to sustainable mobility. But does this automatically translate to traffic decongestion?
Taxi operators do not think so. They argue that the potential to rake in profits without regulation will beckon more car owners to take out their vehicles to carpool. Even employees would see benefit in getting out of their office buses and using carpooling as a side business.
Not everyone sees it this way. Having carpooled for years with the app, QuickRide, Whitefield resident Pravir Bagrodia sees it as a “boon” for office-goers. “Without an app, I could carpool occasionally with a colleague. But the apps multiply the ability to carpool. I have used the app to complete 1,400 rides so far,” he says.
Besides, in a city with grossly inadequate rail, Metro and bus connectivity is inadequate, carpooling is the right alternative, feels Mr. Bargrodia. “It is any day better than single-passenger cars. Pooling reduces congestion and pollution, and saves precious fuel and forex. Taxis and autos are either not available or charges range from ₹15 to ₹30 per km. They cannot meet the demand from office goers during peak hours,” he adds.
Apartment-level adoptions
Vikram Rai from the Bangalore Apartments Federation (BAF) has also seen the benefits at close quarters, and is clear that any ban would be like throwing the baby with the bathwater. He says, “I know of large apartments having introduced some form of informal processes to facilitate carpooling in different directions where people are headed to. Some have even created spaces in the common area, marking spots for people going in these directions to assemble and take a pooled car.”
Carpooling, he says, is part of the ‘Personal to public’ campaign to boost public transport. “The concerns around commercial implications, whether white board vehicles are behaving like yellow boards can all be addressed. Banning would be counter intuitive in a scenario with so much traffic. Some bit of minimum compliance could be built around the system with a structure, framework and guidelines,” suggest Vikram.
Question government
But urban mobility analyst Ashwin Mahesh has a completely different take on the whole issue. Carpooling, according to him, is not the point here. “The question to the government should not be if carpooling is legal or illegal. It should be about what they are doing to reduce vehicle numbers on the road. That should be the starting point. Carpooling should be a derivative of that larger question,” he explains.
Is there a government strategy to reduce vehicles? “Let the minister make it clear. Also, since the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) bill has been passed, carpooling – clearly part of land transport - should be the domain of that Authority. BMLTA can put together a proper white paper on a carpooling policy. But they are not doing anything, they are just responding to each thing as it comes up. They don’t have a road network development plan, a pedestrianisation plan or a public transport plan,” says Mr. Mahesh.
