KOCHI: Taxi unions across the country will launch their own mobile application on Thursday, to ‘liberate their drivers from the restrictive and autocratic cab aggregators with deep pockets’ to coincide with the Martyrs’ Day. Cab drivers associated with Ola and Uber across six cities have already started using a ride-hailing mobile app developed by Baxi, founded in May 2015 by Ashutosh Johri and Manu Rana, 1995 batch alumni from IIT-D.
“This new app will offer fixed fares without surge pricing and allow cab drivers to pick passengers directly from the road outside high traffic areas like offices, malls and residential complexes,” a release said here. The fares will be regulated by a committee comprising members of the respective unions in cities like Delhi, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Bengaluru.
“We will be talking to unions in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram to enroll them into our ride-hailing app, which can be easily downloaded,” said a company spokesman.
“The fares will be competitive, but will allow the drivers to earn a comfortable amount every month. Drivers associated with Ola and Uber had recently been hit with a double whammy - after recovering extremely low rates from the passengers for their trips, they also had to share 20-30 per cent of their revenue with the cab aggregators,” the release said. Ashutosh Johri, CEO and co-founder of Baxi, said the startup’s bike taxi business turned profitable in the last few months. “We used our learning of the past year-and-a-half in the business to tweak the partner mobile app to cater to cab drivers. They now have true freedom to work and earn at their own pace, without being dictated by unsustainable and artificial incentives or being exploited by their current employers.”
Within 24 hours of the app being released to the driver community, there have already been more than 1,000 downloads, and the pace is picking up every minute.