Under the Odd/Even Scheme, odd numbered vehicles were allowed to ply on odd dates in the first fortnight of the year while even numbered vehicles took to the roads on even dates. According to Kejriwal, the Odd/Even scheme was a success and it did bring down pollution and, more importantly, did away with unending traffic snarls across the capital.
Here, Raghav Gupta, Country Manager, India, BlaBlaCar sharing his thoughts on Odd/Even Scheme.
Do you support the Odd-Even initiative? Yes/No, please give reason.
Before the Odd-Even initiative was announced, BlaBlaCar has been actively engaging with top officials across India to explain the concept of carpooling through a technology platform. The purpose of doing this was to prompt government action on carpooling.
BlaBlaCar supports all initiatives that are aimed at reducing pollution levels, reducing cars on the road and sharing the cost of the journey through technology.
How has been your experience during the trial period Odd-Even scheme in New Delhi?
At BlaBlaCar we noticed a 66 per cent spike in the number of rides posted on our platform from Delhi-NCR area.
Basically, we saw a lot more people being more active on BlaBlaCar. The major chunk of the 66 per cent spike was from rides posted from Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Faridabad.
What changes and demographics you have witnessed?
We haven’t noticed any changes to our demographics due to Odd and Even. This is because everyone uses BlaBlaCar. While our national average age of users is 31 years for India, we’ve come across a range of stories of retired people, working professionals, students, and business people using BlaBlaCar.
How did Odd-Even scheme affect your business?
We noticed an increased activity on our platform in terms of new users signing up and a lot of rides being offered on BlaBlaCar.
Do you think this scheme was successful?
We feel it was successful in forcing people to look at alternate modes of transport and sharing their commute with others. Once you share rides, you’ll find that it can be a really pleasant experience.
Would you like to expand this scheme?
Realistically, it’s important to take feedback from the people who’ve had to commute during the odd and even days. However, given the feedback on empty roads in Delhi, it does sound like an excellent initiative that needs to be continued.
In which city you would like to try this scheme next?
We feel that Mumbai and Bangalore would definitely benefit from the Odd/Even scheme.
What is your expectation from Phase II?
In phase I, we saw that for the first time, people in Delhi-NCR started taking ridesharing seriously. There was a lot of talk about the lack of existing public transport infrastructure.
In Phase II, we expect the momentum to continue and for more and more people to take to ridesharing in a big way. There are 14 lakh cars on Delhi roads each day. If even half of these cars took 1 extra person with them each day, we could easily create 10 lakh seats at no extra cost.
If the Delhi metro were to try and create this same capacity of 10 lakh seats, it would cost Rs. 11,000 crore to build this capacity.
