As the Hyderabad Metro is set to begin its first run in a month’s time, a city-based mobility start-up, Commut, is preparing to step into the last-mile connectivity space. “There are estimates that about 10 lakh commuters will use the Metro and 30% of them will need the last-mile connectivity. That’s the space we are eyeing,” says Prasanth Garapati of Commut.
Electric vehicles
Commut is among the start-ups that have been invited for participating in the Global Social Business Summit in Paris between November 5 and 9. Started two years ago, Commut has also forayed into using electric vehicles for commuting by tying up with Green Mile EV for e-taxis despite the fact that there are very few charging stations.
The start-up is solving the problem of e-sedan bookings with limited charging stations in the city by taking recourse to a huge volume of data it has collected over two years. It has successfully been running smaller AC vehicles picking up people and dropping them during rush hours using app-based bookings. Though the e-cabs is a pilot project, Mr. Garapati says they are awaiting Telangana State’s policy on electric vehicles.
Officials of the Telangana government have made an announcement that they would first unveil an EV policy that would make owning of electric vehicles attractive and then try to attract manufacturers of electric vehicles.
A few days ago, World Resources Institute did an independent study of Commut and its mobility and discovered that 58% of its users were women. “From the beginning we knew that our service would be a hit with women as we are able to track the vehicles in real time. We have developed a smarter demand recognition algorithm that has helped us gain trust among the regular users. We have a customer-centric, location-based search and inventory discovery,” says Mr. Garapati.
Can a start-up like Commut help decongest Hyderabad? “Group travel is the way to go as it is more efficient. But we will need 1,000 companies like that to really make a difference in the city,” says urban transport specialist Prashanth Kumar Bachu.
