BlaBlaCar, the Paris-based global ridesharing giant, will now take a fee from passengers for every booking in Russia and neighboring countries.
Since the company launched in the area in 2014, passengers had enjoyed free access to book their trips. They only had to pay cash to the driver to share riding costs.
Blablacar says that its approach is to let the members use the service first, see its value, and only then start charging a small fee. The company expects paid booking to reduce the number of cancellations.
“Currently present in 22 countries, Blablacar has monetized its service in at least half of them. Starting to charge a fee from car passengers in Russia, we are following the example of other Blablacar European divisions,” said Nikolay Petrov, business development manager for BlaBlaCar in Russia.
The booking fee will not exceed 20% of the whole fare.
International ride for $15
The whole ride including the fee will still cost much less than the price of a train ticket, claims the company. Currently, the platform offers a ride from Moscow to Minsk, the capital of neighboring Belarus, “starting from 1,000 rubles” (approximately $15 at the current exchange rate).
The fee system does not apply to drivers, who will continue to offer their seats free of charge.
Yandex.Checkout (a division of Yandex.Money, a major Russian payment service provider jointly owned by Sberbank and Yandex) will process the payments. Users will be able to pay for booking their ride via the BlaBlaCar website or its mobile app. Payments via bank cards and e-wallets will be accepted. In the future, Yandex.Checkout will also support payments via online banking and mobile operators’ billing.
Passengers will still pay their compensation to drivers by cash during the trip.
Recently, Blablacar reportedly raised €21.3 million euros from Baring Vostok, a leading Russian private equity firm — which brought the company’s total equity funding from start to more than $357 million. The deal was not officially confirmed by the French company.
