Shared mobility to remain subdued, firms gear up for post-COVID phase

A few days back, Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group posted a video on twitter in which an auto driver had split his auto into four chambers, allowing four people to travel, while avoiding physical proximity.

Even when things start functioning normally, it won’t be the same for the mobility sector in the post-Covid world. While personal mobility may gain traction, companies in the shared mobility space may have to come up with innovations to cater to the probable change in the commuting trends.

According to a PwC report, ride hailing and shared mobility will remain subdued in the coming months with consumers preferring their personal mode of transport.

Greg Moran, CEO & Co-Founder, Zoomcar expects a wider number of use cases to emerge for car based personal mobility.

“Over and above the historical use cases, we see more demand for very short term use cases given the hygiene/safety factor. We are preparing for a three-fold jump in demand,” said Moran.

Bengaluru based start-up Yulu had also run an internal survey to understand the impact of Covid-19 on the psyche of people concerning their commuting behaviour in the near future.

Amit Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO, Yulu said the survey highlighted that the first preference for commuters would be to use their own vehicles, but as the vehicle ownership in the country is very low, people would want to use services like rental, self drive. There will be a significant drop in carpool and other form of shared mobility services.

"We were not offering our vehicles for Long periods, but now we'll be providing special packages, in which the person can keep the vehicle for a longer duration. The user would also be able to see when the bike was last sanitised on the app," said Gupta.

Sunil Gupta, MD & CEO, Avis India said, people would want to use the services of a company that takes care of the hygiene factor.

“We have already begun the process of disinfecting our fleet cars on a daily basis. We are paying special attention to interior customer touch points such as seats, steering wheels, door handles and other hard surfaces. We are also providing hand sanitisers inside our cars so that customers can disinfect their hands as soon as they enter the car,” he said.

While carpooling with strangers may go down, It may still be preferred to travel with family and acquaintances.

According to Lakshna Jha, CEO and Co-founder sRide, shared mobility such as carpooling would be preferred, as safety and trust will be critical factors while travelling in the future.

“People who know each other, friends, neighbours, colleagues will be most comfortable carpooling together in small groups,” said Jha.

Relationship with OEMs

Many companies in the mobility sector have partnered with OEMs for the delivery of essential commodities. This relationship may continue even post the pandemic, emerging as a new business model.

Moran said that Zoomcar’s relationship with OEMs is expected to continue to deepen even after coming out of lockdown.

“The need for alternative mobility solutions for OEMs is now even greater and the scope for collaboration on subscriptions is at an all-time high,” said Moran.

Gupta mentioned that currently, Yulu workers are helping with the delivery of groceries and medicines. “The moment our regular business is operational, we will continue with the collaborations, letting some third party use our vehicles during the non-peak hours.”