Mumbai city has a shortage of autorickshaws and Rickshawale is bridging the gap between the customer and the autorickshaw driver by giving the customer a pick up from his / hers location and providing business to the autorickshaw driver. 
Rickshawale is a 24*7 service that enables Mumbaikars to call an autorickshaw at their door step. All you need to do is call up 9664 010101 or 022-25747474 from your phone in order to book the rickshaw. The company has designed a technology in-house using GSM/GPRS (from LOOP mobile) for tracking the drivers and is ensuring that there is no refusal-of-service, a phenomena very often seen with autorickshaw drivers across the country.
How Rickshawale Works
When a customer calls the Rickshawale call center, a trained customer service associate receives the call and notes down the passenger’s details such as their pick-up location, contact number and drop-off location.
These details are then SMSed to the Rickshawale auto rickshaws closest to the customer’s pick up location, who are presently not ferrying a customer. When the auto rickshaw driver reads the SMS, he presses a button on the Rickshawale GSM tracking device. Instantly, a confirmation is sent to the customer with details of the Rickshawale auto rickshaw driver such as his name, contact number and auto rickshaw registration number. Simultaneously, an SMS is sent to the auto rickshaw driver with the passenger’s details so that he can reach the pick up location on time!
When the auto rickshaw reaches the drop off location, the passenger simply pays the fare by the meter and the convenience charge And the auto rickshaw is available for a new trip booking.
QnA with Rickshawale Team
1. Are you guys full time into this?
Hemant Jain is the Founder and is full time in the project. Gaurav is running his own digital media company and Sandeep a logistics outfit, both are part time in the project
2. Could you share more about the tech part? Are you giving away GPS devices to these autorickshaw drivers?
The technology is developed inhouse and based on the LOOP Mobile GSM/GPRS network. We have a GPRS tracking device which has various operating functions and linked with our application.
We are giving GPRS/ GSM devices to the drivers
3. How do you recruit these drivers? What’s the incentive for them to be a part of your network?
We have a very clear guidelines for recruiting drivers.
The essentials for appointing are
1. Valid Licence
2. Valid Badge
3. Valid Permit to run the rickshaw
4. Minimum 5 years driving license and driving in Mumbai city
5. Minimum 10 std pass
6. Valid Ration Card for address proof
7. 2 strong references of our existing members
The incentive is giving additional business along with their existing daily business, thereby increasing their daily income.
3. What’s the long term focus?
To migrate from GPRS technology to GPS and take the Rickshawale brand to other cities and subsequently pan India.
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Given the local nature of this business, Rickshawale is solving a huge pain-point (unstated though) and it simply takes WoM (word of mouth) to get a service like this hugely popular among the mass. The key however is in building ‘product elements’ in the service that are replicable across different cities, for example managing ‘inventory’ etc.
What’s your take on Rickshawale? If you are from Mumbai, do give it a shot and share your experience.
