sRide becomes official carpooling partner

To mark a sustainable impact towards the efficacy of ‘Car Free Thursdays’ sRide app has come on board as the official carpooling partner for the programme.

Launched in August, the ‘Car-Free-Thursday’ initiative has been making a notable progress. The idea of carpooling exists for ages but, what makes this app unique?
Speaking to CityTAB, founder and CEO of sRide, Lakshna Jha says, “The app is one-of-a-kind as it connects the rider and the car owners to help commuters save money, reduce traffic and stay green. sRide focuses on instant carpooling. We have a feedback and rating mechanism i.e. the driver and the rider can rate each other. These ratings are then used by the app to create better matches for users.

Talking about the idea behind starting the app, Lakshna says, “It came from my personal experience when I was working for Infosys in Pune. Around five lakh employees base used to come at the same time, same location and in their vehicle all alone. And, I always thought why don’t people carpool? There are a few websites to help in carpooling but, they are outdated and nobody uses them.

“To make the experience better and to avoid traffic congestions, we came up with this idea of starting an app where people can carpool by making their daily commute easy and comfortable,” he added.

Nitin Chadha, the COO and director of the company says, “After our successful launch in Pune, we were looking to expand and Hyderbad (in June) was the best choice as people travel long distances all over the city to reach HITEC city.

“Around the same time, Telangana government launched ‘Car Free Thursdays’ programme and we got in touch with Jayesh Ranjan (IT secretary). They provided full support to us and we became the official carpool partner for the programme. In Hyderabad alone we have 10,000+ users. The users are spread across multiple corporate (we have people from more than 57 companies using sRide) as well as others who are not part of any organisation but still use the app on daily basis. These are professionals like doctors, private job people as well as college going students,” he added.

The app is available in Hyderabad, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai on both iOS and Android.

By Meenakshi Sengupta