Thursday, September 17, 2015

BlaBlaCar, a High-Valued French Ride-Sharing Start-Up


            BlaBlaCar is an app that allows you to carpool with strangers and split and the cost of travel anywhere you’re going. In the BlaBlaCar profile, one would enter his/her interests and how conversational they are. Then, if two people with similar interests are traveling to the same place, i.e., New York to Boston, they would be matched together and be able to share the ride and its cost.
            One point from this article that should be emphasized is the fact that BlaBlaCar is able to avoid controversy with taxi associations and regulations. They are able to do this because the driver of the trip is not directly making money by taking other passengers, he/she is only saving money by splitting costs, which in some aspects gives BlaBlaCar an advantage over companies such as Uber, which is restrained to some regulations. Another point I would like to emphasize is that sharing a ride through BlaBlaCar is a much cheaper alternative than riding with i.e., Amtrak, which can saves users a ton of money every trip. One last point that I would like to emphasize is that BlaBlaCar is based in Europe and not yet available us in the U.S. Soon however, this money-saving app will be available to those in North America.
            Although I found this article to be quite enlightening and useful, it does leave out some information that the readers may be asking about afterwards. First, the article makes no mention of how exactly the company will make any revenue if the driver does not make any profit from the ride. For example, Uber makes money because, obviously, the drivers are paid which brings money back to the company, but if the driver is not lucrative, then how will the company benefit from those shared rides. Second, there is no mention of the drivers themselves. For example, what about the driving records, mental, or physical state of those people using the app. Does the app require clean driving records of those driving, and if so, how does it obtain that? It would likely be important to all the people using this app to know if they will have an enjoyable ride and if they will get to their destination safely.

Sources:

Scott, Mark. "BlaBlaCar, a French Ride-Sharing Start-Up, Is Valued at $1.6 Billion." Bits BlaBlaCar a French RideSharing StartUp Is Valued at 16 Billion Comments. Th New York Times, 16 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Sept. 2015. <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/blablacar-a-french-ride-sharing-start-up-is-valued-at-1-4-billion/?ref=technology>.

1 comment:

  1. This blog caught my attention and was very informative because I had never previously heard of this company. You took a very money oriented approach towards the company, but it seems like that may not necessarily be the only concern of BlaBlaCar. After doing some research into BlaBlaCar, it seems like although the money that can be saved by using BlaBlaCar may be substantial; the company focuses more on bringing people together. The name of the company even focuses on how conversational people are, and aims to connect people with similar travel schedules. After all, the driver isn't making a profit so the primary reason one would sign up is to have someone to talk to and maybe make some new friends, all while saving a little bit of cash. One more thing that BlaBlaCar is doing is helping reduce the number of cars on the road, which means less pollution. This is not only helping the environment, but as new generations become more environmentally conscious, the market for BlaBlaCar will grow. BlaBlaCar is taking a very modern and simplistic approach to transportation, and hopefully they will eventually make their way to the United States.

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