Our co-traveller rating is aimed at ensuring a safe share ride, explains BlaBlaCar

The Europe based city-to-city carpooling start-up BlaBlaCar launched in India even though other app-based taxi services are facing regulatory hurdles in the country. Co-founded by Nicolas Brusson, the India operation will be headed by Raghav Gupta and the company will start its operation in Delhi-Gurgaon. India is the 14th and first country outside Europe where BlaBlaCar has its service. BlaBlaCar raised $100 million in July 2014 from Accel Partners and Index Ventures among other investors. To be sure, there are a few local carpooling start-ups such as RidingO, SmartMumbaikar, etc. In November last year, Rocket Internet-backed TripDa, which also offers ride sharing between two cities, launched in India. Even though carpooling itself is not a new concept in India, Indians are not used to hitching a ride with a fellow traveller and will be interesting to see how it pans out. Gupta says last-minute traveling, which is a big pain in India, is what BlaBlaCar specialises in and has experience in streamlining such travel seamlessly for people. We talk to Nicolas Brusson and Raghav Gupta about BlaBlaCar and their expectations from the Indian market. Edited Excerpts: How does it work and how do you determine the price? [caption id=“attachment_2049301” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nicolas Brusson, co-founder of BlaBlaCar[/caption] Raghav: Ours is a platform that offers a city-to-city car ride sharing solution and it works in a very simple way. If someone is travelling from Delhi to Chandigarh via car and has a few seats available, she can offer those empty seats to other people going to the same place and share the cost benefitting everyone. We recommend a price based on fuel and toll costs, which the car owner can either agree to or change. However, the car owners do not make profit, but they save a lot by dividing the total cost among co-travellers. How do you monetise? Nicolas: For a number of months when we launch in any new country, our focus is on educating people about our service, since it’s a new concept. We want people to start using our service and discover the benefits of ride sharing. Once that starts to happen and we get good usage going on BlaBlaCar, we will start charging a fee which is typically a booking or transaction charge which is probably around 10% or so. We are now in 14 countries and have started monetising in two. Our focus is on building the community and drive our platform’s usage. The monetisation model right now is what we have in other countries, but we want to first see how it pans out and then decide on how to go about it. What makes us interesting is the number of people who use our service in the existing markets. About 20 lakh people travel with us every month. How safe is it to travel with an unknown person via BlaBlaCar? Nicolas: We have put in place a slew of safety measures such as we do not allow users to use their pseudonyms as we link their Facebook account and their mobile number as a signing up process. So any fellow traveller or a car owner can see who has approached them for the ride and depending on their Facebook profile, friends, etc. they can have a fairly good idea about the other person. Apart from all this, what works the best is our peer to peer rating system, which is not just a thumbs up or thumbs down sort of rating, but a detailed experience report from both the car owners and co-travellers. It builds an eco-system and as more and more people rate each other, it becomes easier for everyone to choose with who you want to share your ride with. People generally use trains or buses to travel between cities in India. Will this nature of Indians affect the business? Raghav: The annual number of train trips between cities is 7.6 billion in India, but the problem with booking train rides is that getting ticket is uncertain if you haven’t planned your trip well in advance. But if I know a person is going to the same destination in his car, it will be both convenient and cheaper for me to share that car ride and expenses with him. Even though people travel from city to city, the last minute travel is the most inconvenient for them to arrange. As this is our value proposition, we can manage this in a very efficient manner. What are the problems that you expect in India? Raghav: It’s mainly that it’s a new concept for India. So in the initial month we will be focusing a lot around educating people about what we do and making sure that everything works according to our expectations. Only after things start, we will get to know specific feedback from travelers who join us specifically from India.Then only we will be able to decide what changes we have to make accordingly.