ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., stylised as OL?, is an Indian origin online transportation network company. It was founded as an online cab aggregator in Mumbai, but is now based in Bangalore. As of April 2017, Ola was valued at $3 billion.
Ola Cabs was founded on 3 December 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal, currently CEO, and Ankit Bhati. As of 2017, the company has expanded to a network of more than 600,000 vehicles across 110 cities. In November 2014, Ola diversified to incorporate autorickshaws on a trial basis in Bangalore. After the trial phase, Ola Auto expanded to other cities like Delhi, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata starting in December 2014. In December 2015, Ola expanded its auto services in Mysore, Chandigarh, Indore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Guwahati, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. In January 2018, Ola extended its reach into its first overseas market, namely Australia, and has plans to eventually run the service in Sydney and Melbourne - having already arrived in Perth in late February.
Video Ola Cabs
History
In March 2015, OlaCabs acquired Bangalore based taxi service TaxiForSure for approximately US$200 million. From 25 June 2015, Ola users have gained access to TFS cabs via the Ola mobile application. In November 2015, Ola acquired Geotagg, a trip-planning applications company, for an undisclosed sum.
In December 2017, Ola acquired Foodpanda's business in India.. In April 2018, Ola made its second acquisition with Ridlr (formerly Traffline), a public transport ticketing app.
Maps Ola Cabs
Services
Ola provides different types of service, ranging from economic to luxury travel. The cabs are reserved through a mobile app and the service accepts both cash and cashless payments with Ola money. It claims to clock an average of more than 150,000 bookings per day and commands 60% of the market share in India.
Criticism
Technology
OlaCabs' technology came under criticism regarding the security of its mobile app. The API calls could be replayed to top up its wallet.
In August 2016, a privacy breach occurred when customers' details such as names, phone numbers and addresses, in Bangalore, were received as SMS messages by an individual in Chennai. Although these unanticipated messages were reported to Ola, the company ignored them, even under the threat of being reported to the TRAI. The issue was reportedly fixed three weeks later after receiving considerable media coverage and social media attention.
Overcharging and transparency in charging
The refund policy of OlaCabs has been criticised because of charging errors caused by technical glitches in their system.
Concerns Of Drivers
Ola from January 2017 has been highly criticised for continuously dropping the driver incentives which in turn is affecting driver-partner's monthly income. Most nowadays fail to cope up with their monthly EMIs and other dues. Daily income of cab drivers is now equal to auto drivers running in the city after deducting all dues.
Charges comprise:
- Base fare (fixed amount)
- Distance fare (charged per kilometre)
- Ride time fare (charged per time taken to travel)
- Peak pricing (direct ratio depending on demand for cabs)
- GST (5%)
- Swach Bharat Tax (0.2%)
- Toll charges (toll collection if crossing a toll junction)
Driver credibility
Delhi Transport authority in early 2015 questioned the credibility and required verification of drivers working for Ola, along with other competitors such as Uber. The inquiry revealed that approximately 80% of drivers amongst all services did not possess permits to ply commercial transport services in Delhi. Drivers also protested outside the Kukatapally, Hyderabad branch office of Ola, demanding more transparency over payments.
Culture
Various reasons apart from gender diversity issues have caused a lot of attrition at Ola, called "Ola's culture problem".
See also
- Meru Cabs
- TaxiForSure
- Uber
- Yandex.Taxi
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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