Ola App to Switch from Google to In-House Maps, UI Refresh “Coming Soon”

Ola Cabs CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has posted a preview of what the company’s new in-house maps will look like on X (formerly Twitter). According to the post, “most people” should see the new maps already. With this move, Ola is ditching Google Maps, which is currently used to pinpoint pickup and drop locations for taxi rides and show users live updates of a cab’s location. The change should help Ola save a huge amount of money on licensing. It is not yet clear how long the transition will take, and which users will see Ola Maps first. 

The company has worked with MapMyIndia in the past to enable navigation features for its electric scooters and taxi service. Ola also acquired geospatial analytics company GeoSpoc in 2021, with the goal of bringing satellite image and 3D vector mapping capabilities into its own offerings. An official blog post at the time noted that shared and personal mobility needs to penetrate deeper to cover 100 percent of India’s population. Ola envisions maps that are available in HD and 3D, with high-quality visualisations and dynamic real-time updates. 

The stated objectives of Ola Maps are to be rich, accurate and available to everyone; to offer multi-modal navigation options based on what works best for each user; to account for drones and aerial mobility; to account for road quality, lighting, and other real-time conditions that could affect speed and safety; and to prepare for a future of autonomous driving. Ola even notes that such technology can drastically improve urban planning, road layouts, and public transportation systems.

Ola Maps was announced in mid-2023 and was introduced to the Ola Electric scooter range with the MoveOS 4.0 software update in January this year. On scooters, the in-house map system allows users to easily plot routes, track the vehicle’s location remotely, and find chargers in Ola’s Hypercharger network. The company has also previously disclosed plans to allow third-party developers to create integrations through an official API.

The company can leverage analytics generated by its millions of customers across the cab and scooter businesses to gather information about real-time traffic conditions, congestion, and user preferences. 

In other changes, the Ola app is getting a new navigation bar at the bottom, which will let users switch between dedicated sections for cabs, ordering food, Ola Electric vehicles, and the company’s Krutrim local-language AI chatbot. While Krutrim is set to get its own standalone app as well, integrating it into the widely used Ola app will make it much easier for millions of people to try using it. However, it is currently unclear if or how the company plans to integrate Krutrim into the cab or scooter usage experience. 

Beyond this, users can expect “Much deeper UX enhancers coming over [the] next few weeks” because the app's design "needs some love", according to Aggarwal’s tweet.