Female passengers can avail ride pooling on Uber, Ola only with other lady commuters

By Sanjeev Sharma New Delhi, Nov 27 : Female passengers seeking to avail ride pooling on Uber and Ola will be provided the option to pool only with other lady commuters, as per the latest notification issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
Travel aggregators may provide pooling facilities to the riders whose details and KYC are available and who shall be travelling along the same route but with varied stoppages from one point to another under a virtual contract through the app, the guidelines said.
“Female passengers seeking to avail ride pooling shall also be provided the option to pool only with other female passengers,” the guidelines said.
The ministry has put a cap on what Ola and Uber can charge with a new set of guidelines allowing the aggregator to charge a fare 50 per cent lower than the base fare and a maximum surge pricing of 1.5 times the base fare.
This will enable and promote asset utilisation which has been the fundamental concept of transport aggregation and also substantiate the dynamic pricing principle, which is pertinent in ensuring asset utilisation in accordance with the market forces of demand and supply, the ministry said in a notification issued on Thursday.
The ministry through the notification has enforced Section 36 of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019. In pursuance of the provision under Section 93 of Motor Vehictes Act, 1988, the ministry has issued the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2020.