Bengaluru cab driver launches his own app to rival Ola, Uber

Taxi driver in Bengaluru starts his own app called Nano Travels amid brewing discontent with aggregators.

In yet another “Peak Bengaluru” moment, a social media user shared that a city taxi driver was running his own application to counter ride-hailing giants including Ola and Uber. The post was shared by a user called “The Bengaluru Man”, and amassed more than 48,600 views, with around 845 likes at the time this article was being written.

Bengaluru city faces commute issues on the regular.

The user shared in the post that his Uber cab driver told him he had launched his own app, called Nano Travels. “Peak Bengaluru: Mr Lokesh my uber cab driver informed me that he has launched his own app to compete with uber and ola and already has more than 600 drivers on his app. Moreover, today they launched their IOS version for apple too,” he wrote.

Bengaluru is infamous for its commute issues. There has been a brewing discontent from customers and drivers alike with aggregators, especially after authorities came down hard on them and imposed regulations for overcharging customers last year.

Several groups and unions have since then expressed interest in launching their own applications, with the Auto Rickshaw Drivers Union (ARDU) launching the highly successful Namma Yatri app soon after.

Cab drivers too are seemingly dissatisfied as they are forced to juggle high fuel costs, high commissions paid to aggregators per ride - which is said to as high as 30 per cent - EMI repayments on their vehicles, harsh working conditions with impossible targets and unbeatable traffic congestions.

The post garnered a flood of responses, with an internet user saying, "There was this Taxi driver Lokesh who once gave me a ride from the airport. He was very enterprising and asked me to call him in case I needed a ride to the airport and said he has a group of taxi drivers that work together. Wonder if it's the same guy.

To this, the user replied, “Wow. Could be the same guy. Even this Lokesh sounded very enterprising. Told this was his idea and company. Told about how he got the coding of the app done from a company and asked to call him if he needed a cab.”

The app, available on Play Store as well as App Store for iOS users, has a description that reads, “Safety first, Mane next."