Let’s face it surge pricing on travel apps is a total buzz kill. During office hours, heavy rains or other unforeseen situations, autos and cabs tend to be exorbitantly expensive, often burning a hole in our pockets. To tackle the surge pricing situation on Uber, Australia has made an agreement with the ride-hailing service for the same.
Australia Caps Surge Pricing On Uber During Public Transport Issues
According to an article by TimeOut, the New South Wales (NSW) government has made an agreement with Uber to cap surge pricing when public transport networks face issues. This is Australia’s first such initiative. This indicates times when public transport faces issues like emergency situations, bad weather or track work.
The Australian government took this decision to prevent incidents where commuters are stranded during peak hours. This is like what happened when the city rail network shut down in the month of March. This was the time when commuters had no option but to book cabs on Uber but the surge pricing left them helpless and enraged. One person even paid a $500(₹41,227) fee for what should have cost just $40 (₹3298)
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While Uber has apologised and even reimbursed prices for surge pricing, this initiative will stop the problem before it aggravates. Australia has teamed up with the ride-hailing app on this new surge price cap. Uber will keep a watch out for public transport in the country and even notify its drivers if there are any issues.
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Can India Follow Suit?
In India, this has been a recurrent problem with ride-hailing apps. According to an India Today article, Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines restricted surge pricing to 1.5 times more than the base fare. But despite this 45 per cent of ride-hailing users stated that they were still charged fares that were 1.5 times more than the surge pricing limit. It further highlighted the poor implementation of the low.
With the Australian government taking this step for the first time, we wonder if India can also follow suit? After all, this is a common problem faced in many countries across the globe. And we should gain inspiration to make the lives easier for commuters.
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