Sarnia's newest ride-sharing app is offering free rides throughout the long weekend.
Pocketride is a community-based ride-share program based in Sarnia that began in response to a growing need for more affordable options to get around the city.
"We started working on the Pocketride app about three years ago, while we were facing a lot of transportation issues, travelling from location A to location B. We did not find the right sources with respect to the usual ones, Uber, Lyft; those were too expensive," said CEO and Founder Ansh Bhutani. "The big giants, obviously, we respect them. They have been in the market for years now. They are billion-dollar giants, but they have failed to serve the rural communities of Canada."
Pocketride is intended to be different from bigger rideshare apps by putting a focus on having safe, background-verified local drivers, transparent pricing, reliable access and being designed to support both riders and drivers.
"We are very community-centric. We are not offering dynamic pricing. Our prices don't go up and down every now and then with respect to the requirements. We have drivers who are earning more than 75 per cent commission out of the whole ride charges, which is typically the industry best, and in terms of the technology, we've built everything in-house," he said.
Bhutani notes that people were skeptical at first, but the response from riders and drivers has been positive overall.
"The community has shown a great response. To be honest, they are skeptical, but we have been able to answer those questions. And after answering those questions, the community is becoming more frequent users. You have to build trust, and the trust only comes in once they use the application and once we are able to serve them," he said. "I feel the community has been positive, but you know they will become even more positive maybe in the next three to four months once they start using it fully."
As a way to get more users onto the app, Pocketride is running a special campaign this upcoming long weekend.
"For Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, for four days, we'll have free rides for all the people from Sarnia, completely free. So we are stress testing our application through that, and we've seen a massive sign-up," said Bhutani.
The Pocketride app is free to download for both Apple and Android phones.
