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Extending members access to one another’s passenger seats during long-distance rides

Key facts

  • BlaBlaCar¹ is a world leading long-distance city-to-city ridesharing community. It connects people seeking to travel with drivers who are already planning to take the same route. They travel together and split the costs of the journey. Drivers do not earn a profit.
  • By filling empty car seats, BlaBlaCar is optimizing car usage and creating a new affordable and friendly long-distance transport solution.

Uniqueness

  • BlaBlaCar targets long-distance trips, whereas other popular ridesharing services focus on local, short-distance journeys.
  • Trust is a critical factor for BlaBlaCar, which is building a trusted community of members. Experience levels are defined based on a combination of criteria such as profile completion, peer-to-peer ratings and membership length.
  • A ‘Ladies Only’ option is included to provide a greater sense of security for female users.

Value

  • Series D funding of €200 million qualifies BlaBlaCar as a ‘unicorn’ with a valuation of €1.4 billion (Investors include Accel Partners, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, ISAI, Lead Edge Capita and Vostok New Ventures).
  • Operating in 20 countries (including Mexico, Russia, India and Brazil) with more than 20 million members.
  • An estimated one million tons of CO2 saved by BlaBlaCar members over the past two years.
  • Average car occupancy is 2.8 people (versus the average in Europe of 1.6).
  • Over 15 million app downloads.

Approach

  • Drivers with empty seats are matched with travelers looking for a ride. Booking and payment is pre-arranged online or via the mobile app, so all that is required of the parties is to arrange a meeting place and travel together.
  • Core to its success were the creation of ‘trust tools’ and a lean user experience on both mobile and laptop.
  • BlaBlaCar expanded across Europe early on, by ‘acqui-hiring’ and building local teams. In 2014 it also acquired a large competitor, Carpooling.com, and its six million members.

Footnote
Sources: www.blablacar.com; TechCrunch; WEF/Accenture Analysis

BlaBlaCar is one of more than 100 case studies identified as part of the World Economic Forum’s Digital Transformation of Industries initiative. An overview of the DTI program can be found here.

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