Hyderabad: Ola share cabs could take you on a long ride

Hyderabad: He was half a kilometre from home, but ended up travelling 6 km, thanks to Ola Cabs’ share taxi rule. When city resident Siddharth Rao asked the driver why he wasn’t being dropped first, the driver replied that according to the Ola app, the protocol was to first drop the person who had booked the cab first, followed by the others.

Apart from the first book-first drop protocol, Ola Cabs also give first preference to Ola Select customers who pay membership charges to get benefits like no-peak pricing, first priority for booking requests and Prime cabs at Mini fares.

Mr Rao, a resident of Vanasthalipuram, said, “I was going home on Sunday and was the third person to book the Ola share cab. I was just half-a-kilometre from home. The driver, instead drove on to Hayathnagar, another 6 km.”

Vamsi Krishna, a regular Ola user and a Select member, said, “Ola Share works on three criteria. Ola automation system decides which riders should be dropped first. First preference is given to privileged customers who are Ola Select members. Second preference is estimated drive time; third is distance. What happened must be an error.”

Ola officials were not available for comment but an Ola driver said Ola Shares depend on Google route maps and that drivers “have to follow the Ola app routing algorithm” when it comes to dropping riders.