After a dry spell early this month, Mumbai received heavy rainfall from Sunday night. (Express Photo by Aishwarya Maheshwari)
COMMUTERS in the city had a tough time Monday evening after public transport services either ran late or were unavailable due to heavy rains. While local train services on the Main line and Harbour line on Central Railway ran late by 20 minutes, a technical problem with the Ola app led to a temporary suspension of cab bookings.
Ola tweeted to its users that they were facing a temporary issue on Monday evening. Kabir, who was trying to book an Ola cab from his office in South Mumbai to Marol, said he waited for almost an hour to book a cab. “I waited till the technical problem was solved. I did not want to take Uber as they were adding a surcharge in the peak hour,” he said.
Other commuters too complained against surcharging by Uber. “Even an Uber pool was charging Rs 1,000 from my office in Vile Parle to Thane. I tried taking an Ola but it showed no cab was available. I finally reached home after a friend offered a share ride in his car,” Vijay Vaswani said.
An Uber spokesperson, however, said they did not see any unusual pattern that reflected a demand-supply gap leading to a drastic or consistent increase in fares. “Upfront fares are calculated using an algorithm that takes into consideration the expected time and distance of the trip, local traffic patterns, demand and supply at a given location,” said a statement issued by Uber.
Train commuters also complained against overcrowding in trains and on platforms. Major traffic blocks on arterial roads, including Eastern and Western Express highways and LBS Marg, were reported.
