When you book a cab for another city, you will be billed for the two-way trip. The travel agency would argue that the cab will have to return unoccupied. “It actually makes the inter-city cab travel prohibitive. Why should you pay for a trip that you have not taken,” asks techie Yash (Yeshwant) Vepachadu.

He along with his friend Uday Jindal wanted to solve this ‘inefficiency’ in the inter-city travel and started one-way one-pay service. “We have tied up with about 600 travel agencies, mostly in South India, to aggregate their cabs into our network. The aggregated fleet consists of 4,000 cables,” Yash told BusinessLine here on Friday.

The two friends started Taxi on Mobile with ₹40 lakh of seed fund they raised to set up the inter-city cab services firm. They are looking at raising $4 million in the next months to invest on the technology platform and on the expansion. The company is engaged in discussions with venture capital firms.

“With a registered user base of two lakh in the South, we are now planning to enter the northern and western markets. We will start our operations in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune in the next few months,” he said.

How it works

The firm appoints a sizeable travel agency in a region as the Master Operator, who would build a network of its own by adding smaller agencies. “Several travel agencies don’t use their cab inventory well. The cabs that go to other cities often come back without generating any money. We will find customers for them,” Yash said.

The firm don’t control the pricing of the cab services. “We will just aggregate the vehicles and publish the rates on the site. Customers can pick the best,” Yash said.

The firm takes a certain percentage of the bill. “Besides generating business for the agents, we will give the Master Operators 20 per cent of the profits,” he said.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW