REDUCE ONE MILLION CARS AND AT LEAST

3000 TONS OF CO2 EMISSION, EVERYDAY,

FROM INDIAN ROADS BY 2020

Project Report for Marketing Management

PGPEM-2019

Group 7
Vikram Mudholkar (1916038)
Jayadeepan Murthy (1916039)
Gulam Nabi (1916040)
Vinay Arakali Nagaraja Rao (1916041)
Ramya Sri Padma Sadasivuni (1916042)
Pusparghya Pakrasi (1916043)

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Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Objective

3. Possible solutions to achieve the objective:

4. Analysis

a. Approach to above calculations:

5. Marketing Approach

a. Segmentation & Targeting

b. Positioning

i. Primary reasons for Carpooling (from survey response)

ii. Major challenges/inhibitions people face in Carpooling (from survey

response)

c. Driving Awareness and Adoption

i. Promotion mix

ii. Product

iii. Price

iv. Place
6. Legality of Carpooling services such as Quick Ride

7. How Quick Ride earns money and why is this objective beneficial for Quick Ride?

8. What users of Quick Ride have to say about Carpooling? (source: Quick Ride

website)

9. Survey Link

10. References

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Introduction:
Vehicular pollution has growing at an alarming rate due to fast urbanisation in India. The air
pollution from vehicles in urban areas, particularly in big cities, has become a serious
problem. The pollution from vehicles has health hazards like cough, headache, nausea,
irritation of eyes, various bronchial and visibility problems.
India emitted 2,299 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2018, a 4.8% rise from last year,
according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). India’s emissions growth
this year was higher than that of the United States and China.

Also, the everyday struggle and effort of dodging traffic and pollution is the biggest cause of
chronic stress and many physiological problems. On an average, a person spends anywhere
between 30 minutes to two hours of their day driving i.e almost 360 hours an year.

Objective:
Reduce one million cars and at least 3000 tons of Carbon-di-oxide (CO2) emission, every
day, from Indian roads by 2020.

Possible solutions to achieve the objective:

Possible Solutions to the above problem:

 Restrict daily registered vehicles on road

o Like Odd-even rule experimented in Delhi in 2016 but hasn’t seen much
success and can’t be scaled
 Public Transport:
o Time consuming, poor connectivity, Gas guzzlers (bus) etc.
 Electric vehicles (EVs)
o A great initiative for future and Government of India (GOI) is taking steps to
promote EVs but will take time to materialize
 Carpooling:
o Elegant solution, private investments, can be implemented NOW!

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While the first 3 options require administrative and government push and intervention,
carpooling as a solution can be readily implemented as the infrastructure (private cars) are
already available, we need to drive awareness and adoption. The idea is maximizing
utilization of available resources and filling empty seats on the road.
This report targets to use Carpooling which is a low hanging fruit to address the objective and
the provider is Quick Ride (https://quickride.in/). The product is already available in the
market.
Note:
1. Quick Ride also provides bike ride services however this project is concerned with
reducing cars from roads and hence Carpooling is the subject here
2. The objective is from goal mentioned by Quick Ride (LINK)

Analysis:
Focusing on the top 4 cities in terms of registered cars can lead to achieving ~80% of daily
car removal target across India (1 million daily car reduction).
Below is the analysis on number of registered vehicles in 9 cities and possible cars to remove
daily with corresponding CO2 emission reduction.

We can in fact reduce daily CO2 emission by more than 6 times (19K tons per above
calculation) the least daily emission reduction target (3000 tons) we have set out initially if
we can remove 1 million cars daily from Indian roads through carpooling service.
Conversely, if we want to reduce 3000 tons of daily CO2 emission which is the least daily
emission reduction target we have, we would need to remove ~156,000 cars daily by 2020.

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 Quick Ride is currently doing estimated 90,000 daily rides across India. So, the growth
numbers seem viable.
Overall, using both approaches, the numbers do add up and the target goal is achievable!!

Approach to above calculations:

 Number of registered cars from the list of 9 cities where Quick Ride operates in, these
9 cities being Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Pune
and Thiruvananthapuram. The source of this data is from Government of India data
(LINK)
 Proportionately allocated 1 million cars to these 9 cities according to the split of
registered cars across these 9 cities. This gives the number of registered cars to
remove from each of these 9 cities so that a total of 1 million cars can be removed
 On Average, 5.07 tons of CO2 emission in a year by a vehicle (LINK) and
considering only working days (264 days) in a year to get daily CO2 emission that can
be prevented from the cars we calculated in above step
Motor Vehicles Ratio of #cars to remove from each city Daily CO2 emission
Registered vehicles (with the objective to remove 1MN daily reduction in Tons
Cities
Total across these cars) [#cars to
(Mar 2016) 9 cities [Allocate the ratios calculated to 1MN] remove*5.07/264]
Bengaluru 17,89,365 19% 1,88,301 3,616
Chennai 13,64,101 14% 1,43,549 2,757
Delhi 30,44,520 32% 3,20,385 6,153
Greater Mumbai 11,91,022 13% 1,25,335 2,407
Hyderabad 6,58,878 7% 69,336 1,332
Kochi 2,03,444 2% 21,409 411
Kolkata 4,27,277 4% 44,964 864
Pune 5,85,900 6% 61,656 1,184
Thiruvananthapuram 2,38,199 3% 25,066 481
Total-->> 95,02,706 100% 10,00,000 19,205

Marketing Approach:

Drive Awareness
Segmentation &
Positioning & Adoption (How,
Targeting
Where etc.)

Segmentation & Targeting

The desired customer personas to identify and target carpooling riders are given below. This
is based on qualitative study.
Behavioural variables
 Feels strongly about climate change

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  Has a heightened sense of civic duty
 Prefers to study/work during commute
 Prefers to watch Netflix/Hot star on way to work
 Likes to spend money on experiences
 Doesn’t like to take public transport

Profiling variables
 A1, A2, B1 of SEC construct
 Is mostly not native to the city they are working in
 Works in the IT / Technology industry
 Has at least an undergraduate degree

Positioning
Such a service should be positioned as a Purpose driven approach transcending economic
and functional needs. It must educate people that Carpooling is a cultural shift and encourage
more people to do so. People should feel the need to care for the environment and feel proud
about the benefits of the Carpooling service they are availing. There needs to be a sense of
ownership and purpose behind the providing and availing Carpooling services. Quick Ride
can also create hashtags such as “#IamCarPooler, #ICareforEnvironment” etc. and channelize
their marketing efforts by developing integrated marketing campaign. Some of the multi-
marketing channels recommended are given below:

While paid marketing and Referral programs will cover the base required, other marketing
channels such as Content, PR marketing, Citizen need to cover the overarching purpose.
Citizen initiative drive can be to encourage people to share their experiences and why they
opt for Carpooling. Super app is to have an ecosystem of services and can also integrate with

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Google services so that when someone searches for a destination, the option of a Carpooling
option is also shown along with Uber and Ola.
Primary reasons for Carpooling (from survey response)
We could validate the hypothesis about behavioural profile of desired Carpooling customers
feeling strongly for environment from survey response. 50% of Carpool users do so because
they “Care about Environment” while monetary benefit as a reason isn’t a significant factor

Care about environment 50%

Don't prefer driving in traffic 26%

Does the job of transporting 12%

Don't like to take public transport 5%

Earn some quick buck 4%

Enjoy others' company while driving 3%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Major challenges/inhibitions people face in Carpooling (from survey response)

Address thru Referrals,

Offers, Public & Private
partnerships

Address thru citizen initiative

drives, Content marketing
etc.

Address thru PR,

advertisements

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3 biggest challenges/inhibitors are (a) Supply issue (more ride takers than ride providers), (b)
Haven’t considered Carpooling (lack of adoption and (c) Worried about Safety. These issues
can be addressed by different marketing activities as mentioned above.
Quick Ride does a good job with profile verifications through Government ID verification,
professional credentials verification through Company Email id and registered mobile
number verification. However, this needs to be communicated to users as Safety seems to be
a top inhibitor.

Awareness doesn’t seem to a hurdle as 94% of respondents in our survey mentioned they
have heard of Carpooling services however Adoption needs to improve as it seems to a major
challenge indicated in survey.

Driving Awareness and Adoption

a. Promotion Mix

Paid Marketing efforts across digital channels to aid and increase

Social Stories (compelling first-person
discoverynarratives like Humans of Mumbai
Triangulated AMAs btw public
to Ambient
make governance
Carpooling
Brand + Corporate governance +
aspirational)
Experiences
Direct andMarketing
PR & Influencer personalised outreach
(regular (email,
seeding of newsletter,
news storiesdrip)
with new age
(SEM, SMM, Aam aadmi
Programmatic)
journals like ScoopWhoop,
(partnerships Buzzfeed)
with the Ugly Indian)

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 b. Product

Product Metrics to optimise:

1. Sign Up%
2. DAUs
3. MAUs
4. Supply%
5. Ride match%

Product Features to Optimise:

1. Institute a Carbon Score for each user – This will be the primary driver for the
adoption campaign
2. facilitate easy content discovery on the app store (ASO)
3. product page CRO (conversion rate optimisation)
4. A/B test app store fields continually
5. aggressively pursue user reviews
6. bake referrals-and-rewards into product usage
7. crash-free product (regular updates and bug fixes)

Improvement opportunities with Quick Ride functionalities as per Survey

Equal share of Quick Ride users indicated improvement areas in the current product along the
lines of (a) Streamlined search results, (b) Time to reach, (c) Penalizing when cancelled at
last moment

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 c. Price
The current incentive mode used is a Commission based referral program. Going forward,
Quick Ride can explore Referral program and Royalty program in order to drive adoption.
To comply with Motor Vehicles Act Section 66(1), Carpool providers aren’t paid direct cash
but fuel points that can be used in car maintenance.

d. Place
Quick Ride should explore city-based marketing approach and provide services in the top 10
cities with the most 4 wheelers registered, which are Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai,
Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kolkata. Quick Ride has services in all
these cities except Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh. So, these are expansion opportunities
However, as seen before, targeting the top 5 cities that have highest registered cars in India –
Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai can lead to achieving 80% of car removal target of 1
million. These 5 cities should be the prime target focus to achieve the necessary objective.

Legality of Carpooling services such as Quick Ride

When Quick Ride was launched in 2015, there were questions on the legality of such as
service since Motor Vehicles Act Section 66(1) doesn’t allow owners of motor vehicle to use
their vehicles for commercial purpose including carrying passengers or goods. The intention
of this act is to prevent usage of personal/private vehicles for commercial purposes. This act
doesn’t prevent Carpooling or sharing a ride between Colleagues and neighbours.
How Carpooling services provided by Quick Ride different from commercial activity?
 The route is fixed and can’t change as per co-rider’s demand
 There is no exchange of cash or monetary benefit between users of Carpooling
service, but providers earn fuel points which can be redeemed for fuel or availing
carpooling rides – This is the biggest differentiator from taxi hailing services such as
Uber, Ola
 Trip is pre-planned and within Quick Ride network of co-riders and not with strangers
on the road

How Quick Ride earns money and why is this objective beneficial
for Quick Ride?
Quick Ride charges 6 percent commission on the points exchanged/paid by the users of
Quick Ride platform to provide/avail carpooling services. The company is generating INR 7-
75 lakhs monthly revenue and is reported to grow at 25% month-over-month. (LINK)
Apart from the environment benefit of reducing CO2 emission, increasing more carpooling
rides by removing cars from Indian roads will lead generating higher commission earned and
hence will lead to increase revenue. Hence, the objective will lead to revenue generation for
Quick Ride.

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What users of Quick Ride have to say about Carpooling? (source:
Quick Ride website)

Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-XMBVQHQC7/

References
 http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/pollution/vehicular-pollution-in-india-2118-words/19796
 https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/indias-carbon-dioxide-
emissions-up-5/article26646376.ece
 https://data.gov.in/resources/category-wise-detailed-total-registered-motor-vehicles-
million-plus-cities-india-3132016
 https://www.mapsofindia.com/top-ten-cities-of-india/top-ten-highest-no-of-car-
ownership.html
 https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle
 https://www.quora.com/If-giving-a-lift-is-illegal-are-ride-sharing-apps-like-Quick-Ride-and-
RideIt-illegal
 https://www.google.com/search?
q=motor+vehicles+act+section+66(1)&rlz=1C1CHBF_enIN768IN768&oq=moto&aqs=chrome.
0.69i59j69i57j0l4.1088j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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 https://yourstory.com/2019/08/quick-ride-hits-2-million-registered-car-poolers
 https://yourstory.com/2016/01/quickride
 https://blog.quickride.in/quick-ride-safety-features-for-a-safe-and-secure-ride-share/
 https://blog.quickride.in/how-quick-ride-burst-the-bubble-of-carpooling-is-a-myth/
 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/car-and-bike-pooling-
platform-quick-ride-in-talks-to-raise-4-million/articleshow/65509770.cms
 https://www.channelplay.in/india/resources/glossary/what-is-sec

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