BlaBlaCar wishes to broaden its mobility offerings beyond carpooling

BlaBlaCar has announced that it has made an offer to acquire Ouibus, a subsidiary of SNCF and French bus operator.

BlaBlaCar has built a long-distance carpooling community of over 65 million members in 22 countries. Since August 2017, it has helped to transport 50 million passengers worldwide, growing 40 per cent year-on-year. The platform now wishes to complement its vast carpooling offer with buses.

Over three years of strong growth, Ouibus has built a bus network connecting 300 large cities in France and Europe, and has transported more than 12 million passengers. By combining these two travel solutions, BlaBlaCar would further develop shared mobility, optimise vehicle occupancy rates for buses and cars, and offer a convenient door-to-door solution for travellers.  

Roland de Barbentane, CEO of Ouibus, said: “This is an exciting time in the history of Ouibus, and a project that could take us further in our international expansion. We are very proud to hit the road at BlaBlaCar’s side. They have been pioneering a new vision of mobility for more than 10 years, and have played a huge part in taking French innovation to the world.”  

BlaBlaCar also announced a €101 million investment involving SNCF and existing investors.

Together, SNCF and BlaBlaCar will look into building an intermodal travel solution in France, spanning carpooling and buses together with trains. BlaBlaCar and SNCF share the ambition to develop shared mobility at scale whilst limiting the single-occupancy of vehicles, and both are uniquely placed to deliver a speedy and convenient door-to-door experience for travellers.

Nicolas Brusson, co-Founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar, said: “We are excited to consider joining forces with the OuiBus team to enable travellers to find diverse mobility solutions on BlaBlaCar that suit their range of needs. This project supports our ambition to grow a broad mobility offer across Europe, combining cars and buses. The collaboration with SNCF would also be a promising turning point in the development of intermodal and door-to-door mobility, a common ambition which we are uniquely positioned to deliver together.”

Frédéric Mazzella, President and Founder of BlaBlaCar, said: “This project fits with our vision to offer a shared, convenient and affordable mobility solution, whilst reducing the environmental impact of road travel. Our mission has always been to fill up empty vehicles, and a full bus produces 10 times less CO2 per person than someone alone in their car. By centralising complementary offers on BlaBlaCar – including long-distance carpooling, commuter carpooling and now buses – we will make the search for a travel solution even easier for our members, who today are faced with a wide variety of websites and offers.”

Guillaume Pepy, President of SNCF, added: “We are convinced that to offer more trains, we need to offer more than trains. We need to be able to offer our travellers the possibility to go from departure point to destination, by combining sustainable modes of transport with a railway backbone. This joint project aims to make our customers’ journeys easier and reduce the single occupancy of cars on the road.”