Passengers of Ola and Uber are complaining of discrepancies in the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) and actual arrival
A joke doing the rounds on social media compares taxi hailing app firms Ola and Uber to a well-known noodle brand which claims to get cooked in just 2-minutes.
However, the consumers of this noodles know that's not the case.
The reason for the jokes is the growing number of cases wherein passengers of Ola and Uber complaining of discrepancies in the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) while booking of the taxi and that of its actual arrival at the passenger's pick-up location.
Software engineer Saalim Raza's case is one such example. Raza who recently landed at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport from a trip to East India was initially happy that his flight was well on time, especially considering the evening peak hours when a delay of 30-45 minutes is considered normal. He had also found a taxi on his ride-hailing Ola app despite the peak hour demand. "The ETA was showing about seven minutes when I booked. However, to my surprise when I called the driver, I was told that his (driver's) app showed the ETA to be 24 minutes. The driver kept insisting me to wait till that time. But then waiting for so long was insane thing to do. I immediately cancelled the booking and had to look for other modes of travel," says Raza.
According to Raza, this was not the one-off case and he had faced similar situation several times in the recent past.
A Delhi-based journalist of a news website vented his frustration on social media last week against ETA issue, with a post: "Your Ola/Uber is two minutes away before you book it, six minutes away after you book it, and if you actually look at the watch, takes 10-15 minutes!'"
Mithun Roy, a Mumbai-based interior designed and a frequent user of Ola/Uber App, says most people don't cancel the ride even though it may be slightly late because of the penalty levied on cancellations.
"The driver in such cases does not cancel the trip and instead ask the passengers to do it."
A driver who has worked for both the companies and did not want to be identified said it very normal for the ETA displayed on the passenger's app to be lesser than the real one. The unreliability of ETAs, therefore, raises some series questions over the business model of the $69 billion Uber and Ola, which was recently valued at $3.5 billion.
While some passengers and observers allege it to be tactful 'fudging' of ETA data by ride-hailing companies, the companies deny the allegations and blame the situation on the traffic movement in certain areas of the city and time.
Also, ETAis dependent of the quality of mapping data available at present, the companies claim. An Uber spokesperson said, "When someone requests a ride, our algorithms scour all the cars in the neighborhood and the trips happening at that point in time so we can try to match them with nearest driver partner. Among other things, our algorithm considers the fastest routes to reach the destination, changing traffic patterns, fact that destinations are dynamic and the location of the driver partner nearest to the rider, before automatically calculating the ETA. While mobile maps and GPS make it easier for us to match the rider with the closest available driver, navigate the fastest path to the destination to improve pick-up experience, and arrive at an ETA, they are dependent on the quality of mapping data available."
The spokesperson said that existing maps are a good starting point, but there are other things they need to know a lot more about, like traffic patterns and precise pick-up and drop-off locations, the location of doors, etc, while arriving at this number. "We are hence investing in a tonne of research and resources for improving mapping technology and thereby the overall marketplace efficiency," the spokesperson said.
An Ola official said they have an average ETA of around three minutes on a pan-India basis and it may fluctuate at times depending upon various factors, primarily traffic movement, duration of signal waiting, the distance at which a U-turn is available, etc.
A LONG WAIT
- Passengers of Ola and Uber are complaining of discrepancies in the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) and actual arrival
- The unreliability of ETA raises a series of questions over the business model of the taxi hailing companies
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