Odd-even plan: Firms like MakeMyTrip, Panasonic encourage staff to sign up for carpooling apps

NEW DELHI | MUMBAI: Carpooling apps, company cabs, shuttle buses, station drops… Companies based in the National Capital Region are pulling out all the stops to put in place measures to try and minimise the impact on their operations from the odd-even rule for vehicles that kicks in from Jan 1 in Delhi.

From creating internal databases to help employees form their own carpool groups to encouraging them to sign up third-party carpooling apps to providing free metro passes to letting them work more from home, firms are trying out everything from the expected to innovative to ride out the unprecedented civic experiment of the Delhi government. The odd-even plan will run for 15 days from Jan 1.

Carpooling is one option that has especially emerged as a favourite among companies and firms with ridesharing apps are relishing the moment.


In the last one month alone, as many as 10 corporates invited ridesharing service BlaBlaCar, a French startup which connects car owners with empty seats and people travelling the same way, to come and present its app to their employees and teach them how to use them.

“In Delhi NCR alone, we have 25,000 seats offered and this weekend onwards, we expect this to go up tremendously,” said Raghav Gupta, country manager at BlaBlaCar.

It is not alone. Ridesharing app, sRide, which made its foray into the NCR just last month, has seen around 4,200 users from companies such as TechMahindra, Capgemini, Deloitte, Cognizant, iGate and IBM among others downloading the app in the last month alone.

“If we all do not take this necessary step today, we will be creating another Beijing in India for our younger generation in the next few years,” says Nitin Chadha, COO and director of sRide.

Another carpool app company, Orahi, was recently invited by Gurgaon-based MakeMyTrip.com to set up a kiosk in office for its employees to enroll and register. Apart from this, the online travel company, which has been encouraging carfree and carpool Tuesdays for the last two months, plans to introduce new measures from January 1 onwards.

“We are encouraging employees to avail of the company’s cab services, which so far 50% of them wouldn’t use,” said Yuvaraj Srivastava, CHRO, MakeMyTrip.com. “We are also putting together a list of employees with their vehicle details and contact numbers which would be circulated so employees can form their own carpool groups according to odd and even days,” he added.

Similar databases are also being created and shared by companies including Paytm, Woodland and Panasonic. Maruti Suzuki has carpooling for employees. So does EY, which has offices in Gurgaon, Delhi and Noida. Most of their employees avail of the pick-up and drop facility.

Shuttl, a bus aggregating platform offering shuttle bus service that launched this year, is expecting a 20-30% increase in clients during the odd-even days. The company has 50-60 buses running now and plans to add another 50 starting January.

While making it easier for employees and minimising disruptions to operations while fulfilling corporate obligations to society is an overriding objective, some companies are also hoping that actively facilitating carpooling will help build greater camaraderie.