Mint Explainer | Delhi may bring back app-based carpooling—why it was banned, and what’s changing now

pollution. At the heart of the dispute, experts say, was not private carpooling itself but the absence of a clear state-level framework governing commercial pooling features on ride-hailing platforms.While the government is keen to restart services as early as this month, carpooling will be classified as a non-commercial shared mobility option.

Aggregators have been asked to rebuild in-app pooling features, a process that will take time, given the need for fresh app integrations, backend changes to support concurrent ride-matching, and operational recalibration around routing, pricing and driver incentives, one of the people cited earlier said.Aggregators were also urged to expand bus and shuttle services, particularly on office routes and high-demand corridors, to ease peak-hour pressure, the person added.Queries sent to Uber, Ola and Rapido did not elicit a response until press time.App-based carpooling ran into regulatory trouble in 2019 because taxi aggregators in Delhi operate under contract carriage permits, which allow a vehicle to be hired as a whole by a single passenger and do not permit multiple, unrelated pick-ups during a trip. Since carpooling involves picking up and dropping off different passengers along the route, transport authorities held that such services fell outside the scope of these permits.As a result, aggregators offering carpooling were deemed ineligible for contract carriage licences, said Karun Mehta, partner at Khaitan & Co.However, multi-stop journeys do not automatically violate the law.