2 weeks Ago
Chennai: A few Chennai auto drivers , aiming to challenge Ola and Uber , crowdfunded their own ride-booking app . With 3,500 drivers on board, success seemed certain until a crippling hack brought them to a standstill. After nearly a year of rebuilding, they are slowly regaining momentum.
Operating under the name ‘ TN Metre Auto ', the app avoids surge pricing, maintaining a base fare 49 for the first 1.8km, with passengers paying 16 for every additional kilometre. A typical 5-km ride costs 110, with drivers retaining 101 after service charges and GST, a model designed to favour the drivers.
This driver-friendly approach attracted a substantial number of drivers around 3,500 at its peak until a group of Swedish hackers breached the server, demanding 12 lakh in ransom to recover the deleted customer and driver data. After months of struggle, the app was restored, but the team is still fighting to regain trust. "Through word of mouth, we've managed around 200 bookings daily, but it's an uphill battle to win back drivers and customers," said R K Sedhuraman, the group's president.
Without other revenue streams, the drivers continue to fund the app from their own pockets, spending 30,000 a month to keep it running. "We're unsure how long we can sustain this unless drivers trust us again. People still mistakenly think this is just another corporate app," he said.
Another challenge is that many Chennai drivers are accustomed to asking for an extra 10 to 50 on top of the fare calculated by the app, which relies on Google Maps and real-time traffic data. TN Metre Auto strictly discourages this practice and blocks drivers who engage in it, which has made some hesitant to rejoin the platform. The city has more than 90,000 autos, which on average take 5-7 trips a day, shows govt data.
Notably, the state transport department announced last year that it would roll out a GPS-based auto meter and launch its own monitoring app. Till date, it has not materialised..
