North South University

School of Business & Economics

Department of Management

Summer 2019
MGT 368: Entrepreneurship
Section No: 21

Shuttle: Fearless Ride

Assigned By: S.S.M Sadrul Huda (SSS1)
Assigned To:
Name: ID:
Sheikh Sameen Faizan 162 0107 042
Afia Mobashewera 161 0365 030
Nozybullah Ahmed 152 0510 031
Shakhawatul Islam 152 1713 030
Mishail Mahmud Rimon 161 1062 030
Shakila Tumpa

Date of Submission: 18th July,2019

i
 Shuttle: Fearless Ride

Introduction

Travelling safely with comfort and luxury was nothing more than a dream for the women of
Dhaka. In a time when harassment of women specially in public transport became an everyday
news, three passionate individuals started Shuttle, an app-based pick and drop service for female
students and working women. One year ago, on 16th of July, 2018, Shuttle started its journey in
the city of Dhaka. Transportation problem is the most severe problem faced by the inhabitants,
especially women of Dhaka. It is a nightmare for women when it comes to commuting in public
transports. Keeping this in mind, Shuttle has come forward to solve this problem for women.
With verified and responsible trip managers and a hard-working team, it works persistently to
ensure safe and sound travel for women so that they can have a comfortable journey. Shuttle has
many micros, of which most of them are Hiace of Toyota brand. Shuttle runs on specific routes
with specific pick-up and drop-off points on a fixed schedule.

Shuttle is an independent business venture that came out of Robi’s digital entrepreneurship
development programme for its employees, r-ventures. Reyasat Chowdhury, Shah Sufian
Mahmud Chowdhury and Jawwad Jahangir came forward with the idea of Shuttle. Their journey
started as they though that there was an urgent need of a transport service for women which is
safe, comfortable and at the same time, affordable.
During the pre-stage of the project over 300
female university goers were interviewed to find
out the ins and outs of the transportation problem
faced by them. Eventually, a pilot project was
launched in July, 2018 for some specific
universities to test the usefulness of the project.
To their surprise it received overwhelming
response even without any promotion activities.
This boosted the founders and so they started
expansion of it. At present they have 7 routes in
Dhaka city with more than 17000 clients.
Working Procedure

 For using the service, the Shuttle app has to be

downloaded. It must be kept in mind that only
working women/students can use this service.
 Then she has to register herself as a user be
giving some personal details.
 Registration can also be done through their
website which is www.shuttlebd.com.
 After the registration is complete, the user will be able to book a ride and select the
desired pick up and drop off locations.
 Then the user must go to the pickup location and avail their service.

Vehicles they use

At present they have a fleet of 18 Hiace micros of Toyota brand. Every micro is air-conditioned
and well-maintained. The vehicles are primarily acquired on lease basis from rent service
companies. All their vehicles are supervised by trained drivers and trip managers.

Routes

At present they have eight routes which are:

 NSU to Mohammadpur
 Mohammadpur to NSU
 NSU to Mirpur
 Mirpur to NSU
 NSU to Uttara
 Uttara to NSU
 NSU to Dhanmondi
 Dhanmondi to NSU
Pricing

They have two types of pricing strategy:

 Bundle Ticket: It is a way in which a user can buy tickets for multiple use (10 rides).
 Single Ticket: A user can book a trip and avail a single ticket for that trip.

The pricing of different routes is:

 Mirpur to Bashundhara (Vice-versa): 100 taka (Single Ticket) and 900 taka (Bundle
Ticket)
 Mirpur/Mohammadpur to Gulshan-1 (Vice-versa): 100 taka (Single Ticket) and 900 taka
(Bundle Ticket)
 Mohammadpur to Bashundhara (Vice-versa): 120 taka (Single Ticket) and 1000 taka
(Bundle Ticket)
 Dhanmondi to Bashundhara (Vice-versa): 120 taka (Single Ticket) and 1000 taka
(Bundle Ticket)

Problems of transportation faced by women:

While we talk about how uncomfortable and frustrating Dhaka’s transportation system is, we
place minimum emphasis on the plight of female citizens commuting around the city. Women
represent 51% of the population in Bangladesh and according to a study by Action Aid, it was
found that 21% of the public transport users are women. A very heart-breaking fact is that
majority of these women travelling in public transport have been victims of sexual, physical or
verbal harassment. In any given situation, women in our city, irrespective of their age or social
standing feel insecure, if not unsafe, to travel alone after sunset. Women who commute at night
usually have to take help from their male friends, colleagues or kin, because they feel unsafe
alone. Because the society is still governed by the taboo: women are not safe alone at night;
families feel safer when the woman goes out in care of a male companion. Although mindsets
are changing now, the number still remains insignificant. Just because of safety concerns
surrounding commuting alone, many families discourage women from working late hours, or
from joining a university of her choice just because it is far away and there is nobody to pick up
and drop her. Technological solutions like ride-sharing services can be an easy solution. While
women feel unsafe and uncomfortable travelling in CNG-run auto-rickshaws or public buses,
ride-sharing services are much safer, convenient as well as female friendly. Still many women
feel unsure about ride-sharing, but the concerns are minimal compared to the benefits. Currently
in Dhaka ride-sharing is much safer than any other modes of transportation, because of the
technology it uses. Uber being the pioneer of ride-sharing has been perfecting all these features
to create a sense of safety in any given situation. When Uber launched in Dhaka, it
revolutionised the way women moved on their own. Many other local service providers followed
suit, creating a robust supply of on-demand transportation. But ride-sharing is expensive
compared to the overall socio-economic condition of the country. Realising all the facts, Shuttle
has come up. It is the best and most safe transport service in Dhaka.

Problems faced by Shuttle users:

Although Shuttle is blessing for women but they face some problems. Some of the problems are:

 Timing is a big issue for the users. Since they are mostly students, they have classes and
exams, but sometimes Shuttle does not come on time because of huge traffic jam of
Dhaka City. The micros sometimes get stuck in traffic jam and so cannot come to the
pick-up points on time. So, many users have difficulties in attending exams and classes
on time. Sometimes users have to wait for a long period of time to get their ride. Though
this is not Shuttle’s fault as they are helpless for the heavy traffic Dhaka has Students
face this kind of problem frequently. On the other hand, sometimes the trip managers say
the wrong arriving time on the pick-up and drop-up points. Sometimes they ask the users
to come earlier on pick-up points which and they start late which is one of their
weaknesses.
 As Shuttle can’t fulfill the demand, they have a lot more passengers in one trip. In their
cars they have only 10 seats but sometimes they take 14 passengers because of lack of the
supply of micros. So, this is a big problem of the users as Shuttle promised a comfortable
ride, but for insufficient supply they cannot fulfill their promise. So sometimes the users
face difficulties because they have to compromise their comfort.
 Shuttle has its own pick-up and drop-up points. Some users don’t have a pick-up point
near their house so they may be sometimes late but Shuttle does not wait for anyone more
 than three minutes, so a user may miss a trip sometimes and when missed, it becomes a
huge problem for the user as they might miss their class(es) on that day.
 Though the trip managers are very well mannered, but sometimes their behavior towards
users change and for that users complain about them, most of the time they complain
about their behavior. Sometimes the trip managers become a bit rude and for that the
users get offended and complain about the trip managers.
 Recently Shuttle has launched their app for android and IOS, where users face some
problems as their app is still in development process. There are so many bugs in their app
so users face problem logging in, booking a ride, canceling the ride and so on. On the
other hand, their hot lines always remain busy so users can’t even book their rides over
there. Being a user of it they can’t use it for some of these reasons.
 Last but not least, the biggest problem is they don’t have sufficient micros so most of the
people don’t get favorable ride on time. Most of the time when a person tries to book a
ride, they cannot do as the micros become filled up quickly and Shuttle doesn’t have any
solution for this problem except for providing a greater number of micros. They don’t
bother if a user doesn’t get a ride. For this problem many users have to travel in another
way. Though using Shuttle is a right for the registered users, but they need to
compromise their rights for the insufficient supply of vehicles of Shuttle.

Solutions to the problems faced by Shuttle:

At Shuttle they have a dedicated team whose only job is to investigate issues and take actions
against the problems. Every complain they receive is thoroughly investigated by their team and
is never ignored. Although some issues take a bit longer to look into than others, they usually
take action within 24 hours. This may range from taking corrective action against a trip manager
to checking the air conditioning of one of their vehicles. They make sure every issue is addressed
to the best of our abilities. From the very beginning of Shuttle, they have maintained a complaint
log which enables to identify the percentage of their customers who have issues with their
service. In the initial days, they used to receive a lot of complains, but the number has only gone
down with time. It went down to a point where the total number of complains does not even
account for 0.5% of the total number of customers they serve per day. There might be a spike on
a particular day/week, but month-on-month, the percentage of complaints has been going down
significantly.

They have a strict policy to ensure that the trip managers are held accountable for every
complaint received against them, some of them have occasionally lost their cool. Since customer
service is one of their primary duties, each of these complaints are escalated to the highest level
and in many cases the Trip Managers have even been fired. Nonetheless, they are constantly
working to improve their hiring to get the individuals with the right attitude and further enhance
their professionalism through tying up compensation with customer reviews.

They have established a Facebook group to get feedback from the customers be it either positive
or negative where they have always kept 100% transparency and have never filtered any
messages or posts. They never used the admin approval option for any of the posts. They always
wanted to know if their customers had any issue with their service so that they could work on it
and also wanted them to share their experiences with Shuttle and build a strong community.

Challenges faced by Shuttle:

The biggest challenge for shuttle is to meet the demand. Though they don’t have started their
journey for a long time, but in this short time they became very popular. They already have
20,000+ customers and so many people want to become their customer. So many women want to
be a part of the Shuttle family but for a huge number of customers they don’t have sufficient
supply of cars and team members. They have a huge demand which they can’t full fil so that they
can lose their customers and this will be a big challenge for them. As shuttle is in their initial
stage, they face some financial problems and can’t effort the numbers of vehicles and team
members they need, so that they constantly fail to meet their demand and getting so many
complains about this. To hold them they need to increase the supply full fill the customers
demand.

Shuttle is not just a "platform", huge human interaction is involved in every single ride that they
provide. There are also a lot of external factors involved (traffic situation, vehicle related issues,
customers not coming to the pickup points on time, etc.) which make the job even harder. The
authority has to maintain a good relationship with their customers, employees and also with the
trip managers. But human management is the toughest duty for any person as one individual is
different from another. They always try to listen the complaint from their customer and try to
solve them as soon as possible. Where they also solve the problems of their employees, they try
to communicate with both of their employees and customers but then again, it’s a big challenge
for them to make everyone happier and satisfy.

The traffic of Dhaka is another challenge for them, because of huge traffic sometimes they fail to
full fill their promise as the cars have to stuck in traffic for a long time. For this reason, so many
users are losing their trust from them and this become a challenge.

Moreover, Shuttle is a very difficult business – they are burning huge amount of investment
every single month, they are having to deal with agitated customers, trip managers, drivers,
vehicle companies, police, investors etc. every single day and they are continuously facing
different challenges to make the service better.

Threats:

 The main threat that is faced by them is the very low pricing that they offer. Talking to
the team of Shuttle, we have come to know they charge very less. As the vehicles are not
their own vehicles and are based on lease basis, so they have a huge operating cost.
Though they got some funding from Robi initially but in future if they have to do well,
they have to maintain a balanced pricing strategy to stay in the long run.
 As Shuttle is the only of its kind transport company in Bangladesh. Big companies who
have huge net worth may start their own ride-sharing transportation service like Shuttle
and can give a tough competition to Shuttle.

Competitive Advantage:

The status of women in Bangladesh have been through many changes over the past few decades.
Recently our country has gone through a phase where women empowerment has been given a lot
of focus. Better job prospects, increased opportunities of education and the making of new laws
to protect their rights have given a momentum to women empowerment. Though there are many
positives in empowering women but it gets hindered due to the poor transportation. Women who
travel alone in Bangladesh faces a lot of threats a threat. In cities and all over the country,
women feel unsafe when traveling alone. There are many transport systems in Bangladesh, such
as, bus, Auto-Rickshaw (CNG), UBER, PATHAO and some others but there was no particular
transport only for women. Moreover, the ride sharing vehicles are expensive. So, Shuttle came
up with the idea of transportation service only for women. Working women and female students
can now take air-conditioned micro busses every day for intercity commute while sharing the
ride with other women. An unprecedented safety measure by Shuttle is assigning a trained and
verified trip manager in every vehicle who ensures safety of passengers. On that account, Shuttle
has managed to gain customer trust by providing their best service. Shuttle is the only transport
system for women in Bangladesh, which is a competitive advantage for them. Moreover, they are
the first and only of its kind in this sector. Another advantage they have is the pricing of the
service. As trips are shared with other women, the pricing is also low and it has given them an
edge to gain more and more customers.

Benefits of Shuttle

Safety: When people share any ride their first concern is

safety. Safety is their foremost priority. There are a lot of
insecurities in the public buses specially for girls. In this
case Shuttle excels as they have a good screening process.
Well trained trip managers and drivers ensure the safety of
their riders.

Pricing: Shuttle charges less than other ride-sharing

vehicle like Uber, Pathao, Shohoz and also others. It has a
very attractive pricing package for users.

Comfortable: They offer spacious, well-maintained and

air-conditioned micros for excellent travel experience.

Hassle free: All a user need is an app for booking a ride. So, it is very convenient and easy to
book a ride and travel.

No fine: There is no cancellation charge fee in Shuttle. On the other hand, other ride sharing
companies charges fine after a certain time limit if a trip is cancelled.
Convenient pick-up & drop-off point: Shuttle always drops passengers to their booked
destinations. They are always aware of the comfort and safety of the passengers.

Reduced waiting time: When travelling in public transport, we are unaware of the fact that
when it will come. In this case Shuttle is an exception as a user knows the location of the nearby
Shuttle micro bus through the Shuttle App. So, they can easily reduce their waiting time by
knowing the location.

Making friends: Travelling has never been so comfortable until Shuttle came into existence.
There are many regular users of Shuttle and it helps people make new friends.

Potentiality

Shuttle is an independent business venture that came out of Robi’s digital entrepreneurship
development programme for its employees, r-ventures. Co-founder & CEO of Shuttle, Reyasat
Chowdhury has recently been nominated for the International Young Achiever Award by the
Bangladesh branch of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT). It is a very
prestigious award. Reyasat’s nomination recognizes the outstanding contribution he has made to
the country’s transport industry. He along with his team has come up with a safe and comfortable
mobile app-based transportation solution, Shuttle, for the women of Bangladesh. The unique
service has already garnered tremendous popularity among the women in the capital city, Dhaka.
At present they operating on eight routes in Dhaka city. They are introducing new routes every
month and within the next few months they have a plan to cover the entire Dhaka city. They also
have a plan on expanding their services to other cities of Bangladesh. Moreover, every year,
many new people come to Dhaka including women whether be it for studies or for job and
keeping that in mind they can increase the number of vehicles they have. They want to ensure no
woman in Bangladesh has to worry about safety about transport anymore.
Operational Strategy:

Customer-Driven Strategy

It follows customer-driven approach to meet the needs and desires of a target market. To do so,
Shuttle develops strategies that evaluate and adapt to changing environments, continuously
enhance core competencies and develop new strengths on an ongoing basis. When evaluating
environments, it monitors market trends to take advantage of new opportunities and avoid
possible threats.

Service Development

As Shuttle is a service-oriented company it always has to

ensure quality and proper management of the team it has.
Customer satisfaction and comfort is the first most priority of
the company. At first booking had to be done through SMS
but now through the launch of an app it has become more
convenient for users.

Promotional Strategy

Shuttle presently serves more noteworthy than 17000 working women and female students
between the age of 18 to 45, which in principle incorporates the college or university going
students and women who work. The sole point in the back of the beginning of Shuttle was to
reclassify and make a safe, comfortable and affordable transport system for women. Shuttle uses
some promotional strategies. One of them is every new user can have three free rides.
Campaigning is also another promotional tool for Shuttle. They organize some campaigns on
different universities and colleges about Shuttle, so that people can know about their service.
They provide leaflets that contain all important information about them. They also use social
media like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for promoting their brand. To establish their
position Shuttle tries to trigger strong interest among non-users so that they try their service.
Shuttle also provides gift on some occasions specially women related occasions.

Conclusion
For decades, transportation has been a huge problem for the women of Bangladesh. We have
become accustomed to all the negative news highlighting the abuses and harassments of women
in public transport. Realizing the facts, Shuttle has come into being. It has got a huge popularity
within a very short time and we hope that in the near future it will reach new heights.

Questions:

1. Do you think Shuttle has made a significant impact on women commute in

Dhaka?
2. What is the major drawback of Shuttle? Is there any feasible solution for it?
3. Do you think the number of vehicles used by Shuttle is enough? If not, what
can they do?
4. What are the threats and challenges that Shuttle may face by BRTA or the
law enforcement agencies?
5. Where do you think Shuttle should start their next operations? Why?
References

 http://www.shuttlebd.com/
 https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/education/working-womens-commuting-made-
comfortable-1553096565
 https://www.thedailystar.net/lifestyle/fyi/news/shuttle-new-ride-town-1687198
 https://www.thedailystar.net/star-youth/news/shuttle-empowering-women-commute-1720162