Indian Railways finds a way to make money off Uber, Ola cabs

In what appears to be a win-win situation for all parties, the ministry of railways has begun allocating Uber and Ola with parking space outside some railway stations.

Five stations in Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley, have provided ride-hailing services Ola and Uber with parking space and a point to pick up commuters, according to an official at the ministry who spoke with Infracircle. The cab companies, will in turn, pay the Indian Railways hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year.

The Indian Railways, which governs the world's fourth largest railway system, expects to earn around Rs 70 million ($1.04 million) a year. IRCTC, a subsidiary of Indian Railways, will soon add Ola and Uber booking options to its flagship app, the official added. For context, IRCTC is one of the most popular websites in the world, in terms of traffic. It attracts over 50 million unique visits every month, according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb.

The move comes months after Uber and Ola approached the Indian Railways requesting to secure parking space outside the stations, a sought-after market among taxi companies. About 23 million people in India travel in trains everyday. There are about 8,000 railway stations in India, and every day about 12,000 trains, governed by Indian Railways, run across the nation.

The parties are working on getting the ride-hailing services parking space outside all railway stations in India, the official said. According to earlier reports, the government organization could benefit by about Rs 1,200 million ($18 million) to Rs 1,500 million (22.5 million) in annual revenue through this project.

Over the past year, Uber and Ola have also been working with airport authorities to get parking space outside some of the busiest airports in the country. Commuters landing at airports in Bangalore, and Mumbai for instance can avail either of the ride-hailing services, for instance.