 "Cab-hailing services Uber, Ola chase target from dawn till midnight")
'Target', a word now linked with start-ups more than anything else, is a critical benchmark for the next round of funds from marquee investors to anyone from Flipkart to Snapdeal, Ola to Uber.
Business Standard analysed the working of cab aggregators Ola and Uber after some 25 rides with them in the past three weeks, across routes and time-bands, through the prism of 'targets' that drivers get each day and their race to finish.
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On one such day, it's close to 10 pm and a speeding Swift DZire screeches to a halt outside the ITO Metro rail station in the capital, way past the expected time of arrival. The driver rolls down the window, and announces 'Uber'. He's munching potato chips of a popular American brand and offers it to his passenger who's trying to settle in the cab. The multi-tasking is taking his concentration away and he just about misses colliding with a bus while trying to overtake. The driver is quick to apologise, but explains why he needs to eat chips (and that's his dinner) while driving. He's been out since 4 am and is still three rides short of the day's target set by the Travis Kalanick-founded cab aggregator platform that sees India as its biggest bet after China.
For the China market, Uber recently teamed with Didi Kuaidi, biggest cab platform of the region, as the American company had already lost about $2 billion while trying to make a mark in that country. But, in India, it's in a cat-and-mouse battle with the Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola, where the lead investor is Japan's SoftBank. The competition is many-layered because Didi and Ola, along with Lyft in the US and GrabTaxi in South-East Asia, have already been in a global alliance.
The target, the number of rides a driver must perform in a time period, is not uniform for all drivers or for all days, whether Ola or Uber. In fact, a majority of the drivers this newspaper spoke to switch on both Ola and Uber devices in the morning. Whichever app gets them the first order is his for the whole day.
Each day brings with it a new challenge, determining how many peak and non-peak hours a driver must be on the road, chasing targets and meeting these, which will decide his earnings.
It could be eight, 11, 15 or 19 trips in a flexible time band that one has to carry out for a targeted amount -ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 8,000 on top of the metered fare.
It's this target that makes him drive at speeds much beyond what's permitted, even as the heavily accented Global Positioning System (GPS) direction escapes him a lot of times, making the cab take a wrong turn or even ending in accidents. Some have shifted to the Hindi GPS, though.
Whether it's Ola or Uber, the platform owner sends an SMS early in the morning, setting a target - both the number of trips and the incentive attached vary, derived from complex math that goes with it.
For any driver, the best bet is to get as many short routes as possible, so that the number of rides increases. They all hate Delhi-Gurgaon trips, for instance, owing to the time it consumes. Pool trips are lucrative because they count as multiple rides, points out an insider.
One such driver, who's sporting branded shades and is already driving like a maniac at noon on the Ola platform, confesses road safety was a casualty as 'targets' were burning out the drivers, who are drastically cutting down on sleep in search of a neat sum by the end of the month. If they meet one set of targets, they want to step up their target for an even higher incentive, and the endless cycle carries on.
Another Ola driver says: "There isn't much of a difference between the two services. We are all busy meeting our targets; if we don't, we lose the incentive. The fare itself is peanuts." He exchanges notes with his Uber counterpart and they discuss each other's targets and manage to laugh and even decide to have a drink together.
Apart from surge pricing, an issue with government authorities, cab aggregators have to deal with the various categories of services. Ola, for instance has mini, micro and prime. An Ola driver says his car is meant for prime but he ends up using it on micro or mini or pool because he's able to meet the targeted number of rides. He's happy as he's completed the 16 rides he was meant to, which will give him Rs 7,600 at the end of the day, of which Ola will keep 20 per cent. How did he manage? "A long trip got converted to small because a passenger forgot his keys and had to return home.''
Meru, which claims to be different from Uber and Ola, faces category issues, too. On one such Meru ride for comparison with Ola and Uber, Business Standard discovers that when a bigger car meant for Meru full-service turns up for a Genie (smaller variant) booking, the driver insists on full payment. His explanation is that he would have to pay Rs 1,200 to the platform owner every day, irrespective of his income. Meru intervenes and settles the dispute but the driver is visibly upset.
An Ola driver reveals a secret: Companies are going tough on targets. While a new driver gets the most comfortable target, as companies feel the need to get new people on board, with time, targets get very stiff. According to him, there are targets of six, nine, 10, 11, and 16 trips.
Ola did not reply to a detailed questionnaire sent by Business Standard. An Uber spokesperson puts the number of drivers on the platform in India at 350,000, while not talking about the market share.
On the targets given to drivers and the commission they make, the executive said: "We are always looking for more ways for drivers to earn more money." Uber constantly tests new promotions, bonuses and other temporary experiments - often city to city - to help maximise earnings and create an even more efficient marketplace, the spokesperson adds. While Uber keeps 20 per cent of the total fare as commission, the rest goes to the driver.
But, the fare is hardly a motivation for the driver; his eyes are set on the target - the number of rides and the outcome incentive that prompts him to be on the road from dawn to midnight.
On a lucky day, one of those drivers calls his wife to say he'll be home by midnight. His calculation is he would make close to Rs 40,000 this month but many others complain the earnings are a fraction of this.