The partnership will enable BlaBlaCar to advertise its ridesharing services to IRCTC website users looking to book tickets for their city-to-city journeys. 

 

This is especially useful for travellers who have wait-listed train tickets and are looking for last-minute travel solutions. 

 

The partnership, a first of its kind in India, illustrates the promising complementarities between established players and new “sharing economy” models.  

 

IRCTC is a subsidiary of Indian Railways, and handles catering, tourism and online ticketing operations for railways. IRCTC is by far the largest e-commerce player in the travel space in India and its website (www.irctc.com) gets over 20 lakh hits daily and sells over 5.5 lakh tickets every day. 

 

In terms of people who use BlaBlaCar, the service connects a variety of profiles, from students travelling to see their friends and family, to urban professionals returning to their family on weekends, looking for a city-to-city travel solution with car-owners going in the same direction, so that they can travel together and share the cost of their journey. 

 

The service allows users to choose co-travellers in a member community with declared identities and peer-to-peer ratings. This people-powered network is present in 19 countries and is privy to the best global practises in this domain. 

 

Raghav Gupta, India Country Manager, BlaBlaCar said, “We are delighted to partner with IRCTC. Our partnership will allow Indians across the country looking for last-minute travel options and those with wait-listed tickets to travel through car ridesharing. In a country like India where demand is higher than existing public transport infrastructure, BlaBlaCar provides a much-needed alternative to people for their city-to-city travel needs.”

 

BlaBlaCar is an eco- friendly ridesharing community and not an on-demand commercial driving service. Price per co-traveller is limited to a partial contribution towards the cost of the journey, and prohibits the car-owner from making a profit from the trip. The platform makes a per-passenger distance-based cost recommendation for every journey that is transparent.