Rating's a two-way street

Be warned about how you treat your Ola/Uber driver, lest he blacklists you. The drivers have their own rating system and can rate you as well. This translates into the low-rated passenger getting a cab later than others. The drivers can also see when a blacklisted passenger is in the vicinity.

Sources have clarified that although there have been no blacklisted passengers until now, the drivers have been told that they should give honest and fearless feed back to make sure that passengers don’t get away with inappropriate behaviour.

A source from one of the cab aggregators said, “Uber and Ola both have a rating system in the form of stars for the passengers to give the drivers, this same system is duplicated for a passenger. After every trip the driver can rate you the lesser the number of stars the more likely that you might be waiting longer than say your friend to get a cab.” This also means that not only will you be blacklisted if you get a one or a two but if you consistently get a three for a month, you will be put on the watch list. The source further added, “The system is fairly new, so until now we have had no blacklists but the initiative was taken when we realised that it is unfair to rate only the drivers while many passengers get away with a lot of antics like getting drunk in car, being physically intimate with the opposite gender and thereby risking getting pulled over by the police.”

The ratings, like the ones that passengers give the driver also have a comment section, whereby you can key in what exactly ticked you off about the driver while giving a bad rating. Rahim Javed (name changed) a driver with Ola said, “I have not used the feature yet because most people are courteous and most give us a five-star rating, probably because they know there is money involved for us.” He further added, “I have had an experience with a man getting very intimate with a woman in the backseat; both of them were drunk and I couldn’t do much even though I told them that the police will catch us. But now I can just rate them and warn other drivers too. Again, this is in very extreme cases though.”

The passengers too, are quite happy with the development, since they believe that it will only improve the relationship between the drivers and the passengers. Souvik Ghosh, a consultant at Deloitte Consulting US-India and a regular Uber user, says, “It is definitely a unique move and it should be of help to the drivers, since it puts them on a more even footing with the passengers. However, I also think that there should be some sort of monitoring system for the rating system, such as a mandatory comments section, so that passengers and drivers don’t just randomly give someone a low rating, as I have seen both passengers and Uber drivers do.”

Prithviraj Gupta, a manager with HDFC life adds that the move would be helpful with share and pool rides. “In share and pool rides, the concept is to adjust a bit. I have had fellow passengers who insist that they be dropped right at their doorstep even though it would be much more convenient for the others in the car if he would walk just one minute. Drivers have also spoken to me about passengers getting abusive or drinking and smoking in the cars. Till now, there was no defence mechanism for the drivers. So a move like this is definitely positive and helps passengers and drivers alike. I would just like to see how far it can be implemented,” he wonders.

—With inputs from Dyuti Basu