It’s the weekend and you’ve made plans to go into the city and have a few drinks with some friends whom you haven’t seen in a while.

But the last thing you want to do is drive there and then have to worry about if there will be any nearby parking.

Not to mention, you want to have a good time and don’t want to worry about having to sober up before you decide to head home.

Owning a car has become a luxury and with the growing population, it’s starting to become more of a hassle.

According to the Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT), road crashes cost the U.S. $230.6 billion per year, an average of $820 per person.

On a global level, road crashes cost $518 billion, which costs individual countries 1–2% of their annual GDP.

Additionally, ASIRT reports that over 37,000 people die in road crashes each year in the U.S.

Limiting the number of cars on the road at the same time is one helpful way to reduce accidents and deaths.

Just take a look around you the next time you’re in your car sitting in traffic. You’ll see people fidgeting with their radios, scrolling through their phones, and looking in their mirrors.

Unfortunately, our attention spans are very limited, which makes us seek out ways to entertain ourselves when we’re sitting by ourselves in our cars, and that causes accidents.

This doesn’t just affect the U.S., but also the rest of the world. Many countries are faced with figuring out how they can reduce congestion and accidents in their major cities.

One way that’s helping reduce congestion is ride-sharing apps. You’re probably familiar with apps like Uber and Lyft, especially if you’re from the U.S.

But there is another ride-sharing app that’s making a big difference overseas.

BlaBlaCar is a private company that’s headquartered in Paris, France, and was founded in 2006. It’s considered to be the world’s leading long-distance carpooling community that connects people who are looking to travel long distances with drivers going the same way.

Its platform provides a secure and trusted community with declared identities and full member profiles — allowing everyone to know exactly whom they will be sharing a (long) ride with. Members can even specify how “chatty” the other members they will be sharing a ride with will be. You can choose from “Bla” to “BlaBlaBla,” hence the company’s name.

Ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have really taken off — there are 2 billion mobile phone users in the world, so it was inevitable that users started to take advantage of the convenience that came along with ride sharing. Uber was founded in 2009 and currently has 8 million users worldwide with a net value of $51 billion. For only being a company for eight years, that’s a huge amount of growth.

So, imagine what BlaBlaCar could do. Right now, the company operates in 22 countries across Europe, Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, and India.

And it has 40 million users according to BlaBlaCar’s founder, Frédéric Mazzella.

For the most part, BlaBlaCar has remained solely in long-distance trips, but it’s ready to emerge in the short-distance territory.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Mazzella said:

Most people use BlaBlaCar to go away for the weekend or head out on holidays… There’s huge potential for daily ride-sharing to work and back, which so far hasn’t materialized for lack of tools or habit.

BlaBlaCar never competed directly with Uber until now.

The company will have a new mobile app and service called BlaBlaLines. This will focus on shorter distance car-sharing rides, depending on user demand and availability of chauffeurs.

Mazzella wants to see this new service become more than the traditional carpool. Instead of having to wait around for the driver, the ideal BlaBlaLines platform would allow for something similar to a subway or bus line. Commuters will be able to leave whenever they want, have the option for multiple drivers and vehicles who will take them to their destinations, and will have “stops” where they’ll be picked up and dropped off.

Statista projects that the ride-sharing market will show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2017–2021) of 21.8%, resulting in a market volume of $70,126 million in 2021.

BlaBlaCar knows that the market is growing and realizes it’s time to grab a hold of the market share or else Uber or Lyft will continue to dominate. This is why BlaBlaCar is expanding its services to entice users with the convenience of its apps to further build its growing customer base.

Keep an eye out for this ride-sharing company and what it could offer the market in the next few years.

Until next time,

Jennifer Clark
Pro Trader Today