The traditional tourist taxi sector is struggling to keep pace with the pricing of the application-based cab aggregators. Representatives of the industry said that the survival of the industry was at stake as it is finding it extremely difficult to stave off the competition posed by the cash-rich, venture-capital funded cab aggregators.
Global investorsK. Radhakrishna Holla, general secretary, Bangalore Tourist Taxi Owners’ Association (BTTOA), said that the app-based cab aggregators were financed by global investors, which enabled them to offer discounts to passengers and attractive incentives to drivers to work for them, which the traditional industry could not.
Mr. Holla maintained that drivers were leaving the traditional cab industry to join the cab aggregators. They wanted to earn the maximum possible from incentives offered by the aggregators and were overworking without taking adequate rest, and using one car and three applications from three different aggregators. The situation is challenging for the authorities in case the driver working for multiple aggregators commits a crime.
Driver-aggregatorSome aggregators said the situation of driver depended on how he was bound with the aggregator.
Gaurav Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Savaari Car Rentals, said that a “partnership model”, where drivers get an assured fixed and variable pay from the aggregator for a car he owns could be better than an “affiliate model”, where the driver buys a cab through the aggregator and is bound to it.