Rickshaw union unveils a new ride-hailing app ‘Awami Sawari’ in Pakistan

The competition of ride-hailing services grows in Pakistan as after the debut of ‘Uber Auto’ and ‘Careem Tezz Rickshaw‘, a local rickshaw union has launched a new ride-hailing service in Pakistan known as ‘Awami Sawari’.

The rickshaw service will allow app users to call a rickshaw at any time from any place around the city and will enable drivers to get more rides as compared to driving independently. The announcement of Awami Sawari app has been made recently in an event at a local hotel in Lahore by Awami Rickshaw Union (ARU), as reported by Express Tribune.

The ARU has already registered around 500 rickshaw drivers, who will encourage their daily routine passengers to install the app. The union is also applying its utmost efforts to provide android smartphones to the drivers, which is indeed a praiseworthy step as most of them have already been protesting against Uber and Careem demanding to increase fares and bonuses.

The base tariff of Rs 48 has been fixed by ARU, while Rs 9 will be charged per kilometer for traveling anywhere within the city. Although the rates of Awami Sawari app are not quite competitive as compared to UberAuto or Careem’s Teez rickshaw service, however, the main strength of this app is the sense of ownership observed in drivers.

According to the ARU President Majeed Ghauri,

“Some of our friends, who have a tech background, helped us in developing the mobile application platform for rickshaw drivers and commuters. The application has been tested among a select group of users and all bugs have been fixed before the launch. We are not against multinational ride-hailing services operating in different cities but we are against the uneven playing field.”

Ghauri has a point of view that rickshaw drivers bear expenses of traffic police challans, the fines imposed by the environment department, fitness certificates and numerous others, while the ride-hailing services are not offering them fine earnings.

Although the competition is going to be quite tough for this newly launched ride-hailing app in the presence of global giants like Uber, yet the chances have increased that we might see more innovation in these services. You can easily install the app on your Android devices from Google Play Store.