In Goa, tourists often face sky-high taxi fares, paying two to three times more than the actual cost for short rides. Panaji-based is changing that. The homegrown taxi aggregator offers a zero-commission model that keeps rides affordable for passengers while ensuring drivers earn fairly.
GoaMiles was founded by Utkarsh Dabhade and other co-founders, Parashar Pai Khot, and Sachin Bhavsar in 2018. Before entering mobility, Dabhade spent over a decade in cybersecurity with firms like Tech Mahindra and Wipro.
“In 2008, a female employee was raped and murdered near our campus. It deeply impacted me,” he recalls. “We immediately began looking at how transport could be made safer, including GPS tracking, panic buttons, and driver verification.”
That project was his first step into combining transport with technology. In 2012, he started Pitasys Software, which began by building school bus tracking systems for parents and later expanded into employee transportation solutions. These early experiments laid the groundwork for what would eventually become GoaMiles.
The Goa opportunity
In 2017, when the Goa government announced plans to organise the state’s fragmented taxi services, Dabhade saw a unique opportunity. He spent months travelling across Goa, studying local buses, two-wheeler pilots, and taxis, and talking to operators.
“I understood the pain of vehicle owners and drivers. Mobility is the foundation of economic growth, but Goa’s system lacked transparency and efficiency,” he says.
In 2018, after presenting his ideas to then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Dabhade and his parent company Pitasys won the tender to launch a state-backed taxi-hailing platform. GoaMiles was founded as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), supported by the Goa Tourism Development Corporation, and Pitasys held a majority stake.
A zero-commission promise
Unlike global giants that charge drivers a commission of up to 30–35%, GoaMiles was launched with a different model. “We are the first in the country to offer zero-commission taxi service,” Dabhade says. “If a driver earns Rs 22 per kilometre, every single rupee goes to him. My revenue comes only from the customer, not the driver.” Later, after the pandemic, new players such as Namma Yatri, Addvey, and Yatri Sathi entered the market, also adopting the zero-commission model to give drivers full control over their earnings.
The company charges passengers a small convenience fee directly, typically Rs 2 per kilometre, capped at Rs 100 per ride, along with 5% GST that goes directly to the government. “Our promise is simple,” Dabhade says. “The person who spends time on the steering wheel should get the money.”
This model, he believes, has given dignity back to drivers. Today, GoaMiles has over 4,300 registered vehicles and more than 5,500 drivers on its platform.
Mahima Suman, a tourist who explored both South and North Goa in late July, told YourStory, “GoaMiles is very affordable. For a 7-km ride, it costs around Rs 1,000, whereas local taxis charge about Rs 2,000.”
The company remains bootstrapped. It raised an angel round of Rs 2 crore in 2022, which diluted less than 1.5% equity. GoaMiles became cash positive in 2023, recording a turnover of Rs 225 crore, and reported about Rs 75 crore in revenue for FY25.
For now, GoaMiles mainly operates in Goa. Around 87% of its rides are taken by tourists, and only 12–13% by locals. Still, its cooperative model has earned the company a positive reputation beyond the state.
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Empowering drivers as owners
One of GoaMiles’ most distinctive initiatives is its Enterprise Skill Development (ESG) programme, which helps drivers and women from economically weaker families become vehicle owners.
“While global players create labour, we create owners,” Dabhade says. GoaMiles pays the down payment for vehicles and handles EMI payments directly with the bank, while drivers repay the amount later at zero interest. From day one, the car is registered in the driver’s name, giving them ownership and security.
The results have been transformational. Women who earlier earned about Rs 10,000 a month as domestic workers now make over Rs 60,000 as taxi owners with GoaMiles, with some even crossing Rs 2 lakh during peak tourist seasons, the founder claims.
The startup also hosts Balika Shakti scholarships for drivers’ daughters, supporting education as part of its social programmes, Dabhade says.
Battling unions and changing mindsets
One of the biggest challenges for GoaMiles is resistance from local taxi unions. Speaking to YourStory, Raghav Ram, a GoaMiles driver, says, “Some union members stop our cabs from picking up passengers or tourists. They take away the car keys and harass both the drivers and the travellers.”
“Initially, there were fights almost every day. Drivers were threatened, passengers were intimidated. Even today, it’s not completely resolved, but 45- 50% of the mindset has changed,” Dabhade says. “We transport 18,000 people daily. That scale is slowly proving the model works.”
In its seven years of operations, GoaMiles has transported more than 91 lakh passengers, covering roughly 45% of Goa’s daily mobility needs.
Technology backbone
Though mobility is a traditional sector, GoaMiles is heavily tech-driven. The company’s 200-member team, spread across Goa, Mumbai, and Pune, has built an in-house fleet management platform.
The company uses Google and MapMyIndia services for navigation, integrates with local GPS vendors for vehicle tracking, and manages payments through gateways like Paytm and HDFC. It also applies AI for actionable insights, analysing driver performance, mapping local demand, and identifying underserved areas to design incentives and welfare schemes.
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Market, competition, and growth
As of June 13, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant rejected rumours that Ola and Uber would soon launch services in Goa, clarifying that the newly announced taxi aggregator guidelines were not meant to permit their entry into the state.
GoaMiles sees its main competition not from Ola or Uber, but from local taxi unions and unorganised operators. But Dabhade welcomes competition. “Healthy competition keeps us energised. It makes us deliver better services,” he says.
According to a report by IMARC, the taxi services market in India reached approximately $20.50 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow to $61.58 billion by 2033, at a CAGR of around 13.
“Goa’s mobility market may look small, but with 40,000 to 45,000 people travelling every day, the stakes are quite significant,” Dabhade says. GoaMiles currently handles 45% of this market and aims to reach 65% in the next three years.
Looking ahead, GoaMiles plans to introduce three-wheelers, expand services for differently-abled passengers, and launch electric vehicles in the next six months.
“Our next batch of vehicles will be electric,” Dabhade says. “But pricing will remain the same. The idea is not to burden customers or drivers but to create sustainable mobility.”
As Dabhade says, “When we started, people said Goa’s taxi problem can’t be solved. Today, every third taxi ride in Goa is through an app. That shift itself tells the story.”
Edited by Jyoti Narayan
