For many professionals, getting to work and returning is an absolute nightmare. A MoveInSync report found that Indians spend more than two hours each day driving to work. This is because of the increasing number of cars with only one passenger which clog up the roads, making commuters in Bengaluru alone to travel for around 244 hours on the roads each year, as per the findings of a study.
This demanded a simplified approach to make mass transit commutes possible.
Jerin Venad Ankit Agrawal Rushabh Shah as well as Sankalp Kelshikarcame to the same place in 2015 to create Cityflo which is a Lightbox Ventures and India Quotient-backed mobility startup working to provide office workers in cities with cheap and efficient bus services.
The beginning
Mumbai-based Cityflo was founded with a singular goal of providing an alternative technologically-based bus service. The tempo traveller buses are priced at office workers only Rs 60 per journey.
We were able to use the app and the technology, making it much easier to book and simple to cancel. It was our initial concept, but after an year, we decided that this model was not viable, shares Jerin Venad co-founder and CEO of Cityflo in a discussion with Business Headers
The feedback from commuters indicated that they would pay more for better service to ensure that they wouldn’t need to travel in congestion.
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Our mistaken notion was that everyone were looking for the convenience of public transport, and incorrectly believed that anyone with a car was satisfied, he admits.
To compete with cars owned by private owners, Cityflo decided to evolve from a bus company to providing premium office travel. It slowly moved from tempo travelers to the luxurious BharatBenz busses.
The company is now charging 185 for each ride, but that price is falling to Rs 148 when you sign up for the purchase of a subscription. The app has more than one lakh downloads , and an 4.4 rating on the Google Play Store. It’s also available on iOS.
Though we’re asset-light, we are able to define the is the best experience we can provide due to our knowledge of the market There is a need for a brand new method of transportation, not a technology solution. Jerin adds.
He adds that nearly 90% of customers are automobile owners.
Presently, the company is connecting popular residential areas throughout Mumbai. Cityflo’s founder says the routes are chosen after taking into consideration various factors, including the locations of high density urban areas and corporate hubs.
The company is currently operating 8000 rides per day and 150,000 rides monthly over 16 different routesin Mumbai with 160 buses. The company hopes to become the preferred mode of travel for the white collar professionals of India.
The company currently provides 8000 rides per day and 150,000 rides monthly over sixteen routesin Mumbai by using 160 buses. The company hopes to become the most preferred mode of transportation for the white collar professionals of India.
The team
The founding members knew each other from their time at IIT-B and graduated the same year. One year later, during a brainstorming session they realized how many of their colleagues complained about Mumbai’s transportation services.
Then, they made the decision to start a business in this field and launched Cityflo. They financed the company with an unspecified amount from their savings, but then they raised a seed round following three months of operation.
Presently, Rushabh heads all business areas, including operations, growth customer service, growth, along with business intelligence. In the meantime, Ankit is responsible for tech and app management, Jerin is the CEO and Sankalp is in charge of marketing and sales.
Market and future
Cityflo has raised about the sum of Rs. 68 croresince the beginning of its existence. In recent times, it has expanded to provide a handful of routes in Delhi as an experiment.
While Jerin states that Delhi is facing similar challenges to Mumbai but he also stresses that Delhi needs to have more routes and buses since there is a higher demand.
We are extremely committed to doing this, he says, noting that the company is doing its business cautiously and slowly when it comes to expanding. We would like to expand to Delhi since we have seen that there is a similar need all over the world and we could apply the lessons we have learned there, however we are at the very beginning phases.
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In order to improve the experience company, they redesigned their buses in conjunction with Pinnacle Speciality Vehicles which would be manufactured as part of the Bharat Benz brand. The new buses, designed to increase performance and comfort will be operational by the end of the year.
The recent study by Frost and Sullivan concludes that shared mobility offers promising solutions for meeting the growing demand in India for transportation services. It anticipates the gross merchandise value (GMV) of Indian shared mobility to rise to $42.85 billion before 2027, up from $11.05 billion as of 2021. increasing by a compound annual percentage (CAGR) in the range of 25.3 percent.
