French ridesharing service BlaBlaCar has tied-up with IRCTC to offer passengers with wait-listed tickets the option of booking a seat on a shared ride. When we checked there was no mention of a BlaBlaCar tie-up on the IRCTC website, unlike the Mydala Deals section or the Shop on Amazon section. However, IRCTC has introduced a new Concierge/Cab section, that redirects to the IRCTC Tourism website and allows users to book a cab or opt for concierge services. Currently, the concierge service is available in 26 train stations across the country, while the cab booking service seems to be limited to New Delhi at present. Last month, IRCTC had tied-up with SpiceJet and GoAir to allow train travellers with wait-listed tickets to cancel the train ticket and instead book a flight on either airline. An IRCTC executive told FirstPost that it had entered into this partnership over a month ago, during which it had sold air tickets to wait-listed passengers. The executive also said that IRCTC will look to tie-up with other private airlines in the future, to offer similar deals. Impact This in an interesting move by IRCTC, but we only see this finding takers for relatively shorter inter-city rides: about 200-250 km journeys that can be covered in 4-5 hours. There aren’t many people who travel between cities in their cars on a regular basis in India, unlike in European countries. Then there's the question of trust factor, which we have raised a few times earlier in regards to ridesharing services, and…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...