more-in “Do you know we have a bike taxi-app in our city,” asks my friend and I look it up. A bright yellow web-page with a graphic of a two wheeler shows up. Launched in February, the Rapido Bike Taxi app has 50000 downloads. Kiran Bruce, Rapido’s Operations Manager says, “Bikes work best in the cities with traffic congestion. It is fast, cheap and user-friendly. The app can be easily downloaded from the Play Store in an Android or iOS phone.” The app is functional from 7.00 am to 11.00 pm and covers a radius of 15 km from the city. The base fare for a ride is ?15 and for every additional km, an amount of ?3 will be added to it. There are around 100 bike taxi drivers (they are called captains) in our city, including four women. After downloading the app, customers have to sign in with their name and phone number to book a ride. The name, photograph and vehicle number of the captains are shared with the customer, once the booking is confirmed. To ensure safety and hygiene, the Captains provide customers with helmets and shower caps to wear beneath them. “If the customer wishes to use their own helmets, they can do so.” Rapido also provides rain-coats in case of rain. Bruce claims that they receive around 500 ride request per day. “Our rates are fixed, and hence there is no peak pricing. Our passengers are insured with an amount of ?500,000. We have set the speed limit of our bikes to 60 km per hour. If the captain exceeds it, a complaint can be send to customer care. The application is also GPS enabled. In case of emergency there is a SOS button linked to the police control room,” explains Bruce. Screeshot of the app | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement Want to be a Captain? Anyone with a two-wheeler licence, a bike above 100 cc (any model introduced after 2004), RC book and bike insurance can register themselves as a Rapido Captain. “We have both full time and part time captains. Around 10 percent of our captains are college students. They can earn up to ?18000 in a month.” Rapido also offers it’s service in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Mysore, Patna, Vishakhapatnam, Indore, Vijayawada, Trichy and Madurai. The mode of payment is through cash, Paytm or the Rapido Wallet. “We have plans to make the service 24 hours and extend it to Chennai by August,” says Bruce. Sinduja Balraj, who is a part time captain (6.30 pm to 10.00 pm) for the past one month says that she often gets surprised looks from her customers. “I ride on a scooty, Royal Enfield or Bajaj Pulser for my trips. I get three to five rides daily. I never had any bad experience from any of my customers and feel safe because of the GPS tracking system.”, she says. G. Senthil Kumar, a full time Captain undertakes around 25 rides daily. “I have a Bajaj Platina bike. Most of my rides are from 8.00 am to 10.00 am and again between 1.00 pm to 3.00 pm. I do not feel like a driver during my rides. I always have friendly conversations with my pillion riders and it is fun.” He says that he is happy with his job and that his salary is based on the number of rides he completes. Pradeep Kumar, who joined Rapido a week ago says he gets around 15 rides in a day. “The working hour is fixed at eight hours per day and I can complete it anytime between 7.00 am and 11.00 pm. This is my first job. I am thrilled,” he says. The Rapido app experience The service was quick and the captain arrived within five minutes. They waited for me to get comfortable before starting the ride. Neither of the captains offered me a helmet, a shower cap or a rain coat (It was drizzling during my return trip). The speed was moderate and there were no dangerous over-taking. My bill came to Rs 13.50 and Rs 12.42 respectively. (I was informed later that there is a discount in the base price as an introductory offer. Otherwise the base price is Rs 15) There was a pop up on my mobile detailing the total distance travelled (1.9 km) time taken (6.8 minutes) and discount provided with the bill amount. Info you can use Call 9894804544 for more details Email to shoutout@rapido.bike for customer care

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