Dhananjay would walk to the Indiranagar metro station from his house in Doopanahalli every day and cover the one-km distance in approximately 20 minutes. Earlier this week, he spotted a rent-a-bicycle option close to his house. He downloaded the app, hopped on to the bicycle, docked it at the metro station and headed to work; this cost him ₹3.
Private players who have stepped in to provide last-mile connectivity to Namma Metro commuters where the BMTC has failed to fill the gap are witnessing growing patronage for their services. Several start-ups are now providing bicycles, electric bikes and even carpooling services to metro users, whose most common grouse has been of the lack of last-mile connectivity or the absence of an efficient, affordable option.
Car pooling app Quick Ride has seen a huge jump in the number of users from Namma Metro since its launch in 2017-end. K.N.M. Rao, founder, Quick Ride said from around 30 users in the beginning, the app now has close to 8,000 metro users utilise the app each day.
“Overall there are 7 lakh users of the app, of which 3.5 lakh are in Bengaluru, and around 25,000 are metro users. Of them, around 8,000 use the app every day. Instead of adding one more vehicle to the road, Quick Ride allows people to see which vehicle is going in their direction from the metro station and vice versa, and share the ride. They share the fuel cost,” he explained.
Demand picks up between 7.30 a.m. and 11 a.m., and 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Baiyappanahalli and S.V. Road stations see most demand, possibly due to proximity to tech parks, said Mr. Rao, adding that the app is finding many takers now at Mysuru Road station too.
Wicked Ride offers the ‘Bounce’ service to commuters (earlier called metro bikes) who can rent scooters and electric bikes that they can pick up and drop anywhere. Vivekanada Hallekere, co-founder and CEO, said the service that provides first- and last-mile connectivity to metro commuters saw a ten-fold increase in takers after introducing the ‘pick up and drop off anywhere’ option.
“We started catering to metro stations in 2016. But, people had to pick up the vehicle and drop it off at the station. This May, we introduced an IoT based key-less technology which enabled people to pick up the vehicle anywhere and drop it off anywhere. Due to this, in August alone, we have seen three lakh kilometres of usage from metro users,” he said.
The service costs ₹5 per km and 50 paise per minute. “It works out to approximately ₹6 per km. For regular users who have to park the vehicle overnight at home, we have a night plan where they are only charged for the distance. We are also going to introduce 5,000 bicycles soon,” he said.
BMRCL spokesperson U.A. Vasanth Rao said these alternatives are filling the gap for last-mile connectivity. There are BMTC bus services where there are bus bays. The services at Baiyappanahalli, Mysuru Road, M.G. Road, Yelachenahalli, S.V. Road and Nagasandra are doing well. Apart from these, cab aggregators and autorickshaws add to the options for last-mile connectivity, he added.