Jindal Group enters urban mobility with Trevel to take on Ola, Uber, Rapido

The Jindal Group has entered India’s urban mobility space with the launch of Trevel, a chauffeur-driven cab service aimed at city and airport travel, as the group makes its foray into a segment dominated by Ola, Uber and Rapido.

The service has been launched by Sahil Jindal, Managing Director at Jindal Group. According to a LinkedIn post by Jindal, Trevel was conceptualised after discussions around gaps in the existing ride-hailing experience offered by major platforms such as Ola, Uber and Rapido. The Gurugram-based company has quietly begun operations over the past month.

Trevel has begun operations with a fleet of MG Windsor electric vehicles and is currently offering scheduled city rides and airport transfers. The company plans to add more vehicle categories over the coming months. According to information on its website, Trevel provides pre-booked, chauffeur-driven electric cab services with fixed pickup schedules and upfront pricing. Bookings are currently available through its website, while mobile applications for Android and iOS are expected to be launched soon.

The pilot phase involved over 50 rides, a number that is frankly not meaningful enough. The platform follows a fleet-led model, with vehicles owned or operated through partners aligned to its operating framework.

Trevel’s entry comes at a time when the premium electric cab segment has seen disruption following BluSmart’s suspension of services. BluSmart, which operated an all-electric ride-hailing platform focused on premium users, had scaled across multiple cities before shutting down its operations. The gap left by BluSmart has opened space for new players in the electric chauffeur-driven segment.

While Trevel positions itself in the electric mobility space, it will also compete directly with Ola, Uber and Rapido in the urban cab market, particularly for airport transfers and scheduled rides. Unlike app-based aggregation models, Trevel is currently operating on a booking-first approach with a controlled fleet rollout.

According to Jindal, the company spent six months aligning its fleet, technology, and operations ahead of the launch.  The company said it will share further details on expansion, vehicle additions and platform rollout in the coming months.

In what seems to be a model that seeks to learn from what BluSmart did right, aligned with its own access to EVs from the MG stable, the move seems to be more about utilising group synergies  to drive sales than a serious effort to disrupt.  The targeted  airport pick and drop strategy, which formed the bedrock of BluSmart’s strategy to stem losses, comes with its own challenges now. We will hope to add more details after trying out the service at some stage, besides looking at the growth projections. The EV cab game seems built around many facets, from access to charging points, to speed of charging and even the cost of charging, which has been a dampener for many in recent months. With the Jindal owned  MG already rolling out its subscription models starting at Rs 3.50 per KM to drive adoption, the latest move seems to build on that as a demonstrable business proposition for cab owners, existing and aspiring.