When travelling intercity, like Lahore-Islamabad, or Karachi-Hyderabad, options for commuters are confined to personal vehicles, bus services, or in longer routes, air travel and railways. Now though, there is a new disruptor in the transport vertical.
Tripda, a carpooling application backed by German tech incubator Rocket Internet, enables people to share rides. The tech start-up was incorporated in June last year; in Pakistan, it arrived in December, introducing the previously unheard concept of sharing economy.
For people who drive regularly on the M2 motorway, or any other such route for that matter, Tripda enables significant cost saving by letting them share the ride, and cost, with willing passenger(s). For the latter, the app allows for a shorter, more comfortable and less expensive trip.
There are other apps that connect passengers and drivers, like Careem and Savaari, but they are inherently different.
They, along with Uber, which is soon to launch operations in Pakistan, are taxi-hailing applications with different business models and are not categorized as sharing economy e-commerce.
Even outside of Pakistan, sharing economy is a relatively nascent industry. According to a PwC study, the sector globally generated $15 billion in revenues in 2013, with services like carpooling, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, P2P hospitality, online staffing, and music streaming. In the same period, traditional rental sector, including car and DVD rental, grossed $240 billion. From such obscurity, PwC expects the sharing economy and rental sectors to be neck and neck by 2025, at revenue of $335 billion each. This implies a CAGR of 30 percent for the up and coming sector.
In Pakistan, Tripda is still the sole example of sharing economy, but its popularity will pave the way for more ventures in this domain. With smartphone (and 3G/4G) users growing rapidly, perhaps the biggest challenge that remains for such ventures is awareness.
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