Uber enters metro ticketing with ONDC tie-up, eyes logistics for food delivery

Launched in 2021 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), ONDC is a decentralised, interoperable network that connects buyers and sellers—much like how the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) works for digital payments.

Metro ticketing with ONDC tie-up

ONDC’s mobility vertical enables public transit operators like the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and private apps like Uber to interact through a standardised protocol.

Starting May 19, Uber users in Delhi-NCR can purchase metro tickets and access real-time transit information on the app itself. The payment method for metro tickets is currently limited to UPI.

Earlier, Uber’s competitor Rapido had also launched metro ticketing in Delhi and Chennai through ONDC.

At the metro ticketing launch, Uber’s India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh said, “Thanks to the work of the ONDC team, the protocol is now live, scaled, tested and reliable. We are now able to use that protocol, go live with DMRC faster, with far more reliable infrastructure, and then make it available at scale to the market much faster than we would have done otherwise.”

Singh added that ONDC’s mobility protocol would enable Uber to integrate with multiple other metro systems more quickly. It plans to expand the metro ticketing feature to three more cities by the year-end.

While this is the first such instance of Uber and ONDC integrating, it’s worth noting that the integration is not for Uber’s main offering, which is ride hailing. This has been a cause of concern for the government as some of the biggest entities in India’s burgeoning e-commerce market, ranging from food delivery to ride hailing, were yet to operationalise full integration with ONDC for their core services.

On-demand logistics for food deliveries

Uber is also developing a solution that enables businesses onboarded onto ONDC to request on-demand logistics through its delivery network—without needing to maintain their own fleet.

“The service will initially facilitate food deliveries, with its underlying technology designed to scale to sectors such as e-commerce, grocery, pharmacy, and healthcare logistics,” a press statement said.

At the launch, Sanjiv Singh, Joint Secretary at DPIIT, also encouraged Uber to “very seriously” look at the food delivery business, adding that ONDC is in conversation with hundreds of hoteliers and restaurateurs to come onto the network.

Singh said two factors are key for Uber to launch food delivery through ONDC—protecting the company’s brand equity and ensuring profitability.

“The first is that their brand equity is not compromised. Uber is such a big company that it won’t compromise its brand equity for some money. So we need to be very careful and conscious of how we work, to ensure they feel proud to be part of the ONDC network. And second, what every business wants is to have profits. The model should be such that it is profitable to Uber,” he said.

Currently, ONDC does not levy any network fee. In December, it had proposed a fee of Rs 1.5 for every transaction exceeding Rs 250 from January, but later postponed implementation to July 1.