The fleet of cab hailing services Ola and Uber got slashed by nearly 25% in the financial quarter that ended in March, according to a report by RedSeer Management Consulting Private Limited. From December 2016 to March this year, the fleet shrunk from around 5,00,000 vehicles to 3,80,000.
The report attributed it to a fall in drivers’ incentives. “This trend was precipitated largely by continuously dropping incentives and driver incomes. Drivers who left the online platforms either shifted into other driving jobs or changed professions entirely,” read the report. However, both Ola and Uber claimed to have around 5-6 million cabs each, reported Mint.
Meanwhile, drivers under the banner of Sarvodaya Driver Association Of Delhi, said they were staging a protest against the aggregators’ “distructive policies” on Monday. The drivers have said the impact of those policies have become a question of “life and death” for them.
The association asked drivers associated with the companies to join them in their “protest against the exploitative policies”.
In February, around 2.5 lakh Ola and Uber drivers went on a strike to demand incentives. Their other demands include base fare revision and a slash in the commission paid to the companies. The drivers said that since 2015, the terms of service have steadily deteriorated to their disadvantage. They say that the rates per km have reduced from Rs 10-Rs 8 per km to Rs 6-Rs 4, and that they get no share of the steep surcharges applied at peak hours. The drivers also claimed that the “company’s commission” – the term used to describe the share of the cab aggregator company that is deducted from their daily income – has increased from 10% to between 20% and 25%.
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