You may soon be hopping on to an Ola-bus!

After taxi and auto services, Ola is now preparing to start shuttle bus services and is aggregating tourist and chartered buses for the same.

In a bid to emerge as a complete urban transport solution provider, Ola is expected to launch the bus service in next two months. Like other services, Ola Bus will also be integrated in the same app from which people choose between autos and cabs.

Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of Ola, in a statement, said Ola is focussed on building mobility for a billion people.

A senior company executive told Economic Times that Ola will not own any of the buses and use tourist and chartered busses to aggregate supply.
Reportedly, Ola’s estimated worth is around Rs 15,700 crore, or $2.5 billion.

"Passengers will be able to make bookings by entering the desired destination and time preference; the app will then indicate the closest bus with available seating,” the senior executive told ET.

Sundeep Sahni, a vice-president for new initiatives, would rollout the bus services.

As per the experts, Ola's bus service will expand its user base and boost revenue.

Founded by IIT-Bombay graduates Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, the five-year-old startup is estimated to clock a revenue run rate of around $450-500 million, and is aiming for gross revenue of $1 billion by the end of 2015.

"They started with taxis and moved to autos. The company wants to establish itself as a transport technology platform rather than be dependent on one mode," Jaspal Singh, cofounder of Valoriser Consultants, a market research firm for transport companies told the financial daily.

As per reports, nearly 1.5 lakh buses transport around 70 million people every day and 23 million people travel by train.

Apart from venturing into several new categories, including food and grocery delivery, Ola is presently working on carpooling, ecommerce on-demand deliveries and logistics.

(Image: Indiatimes)