When it comes to booking a cab on Ola, Uber or any other app-based taxi services in India, the two irritating questions that most drivers ask are– “What’s the drop location and are you paying cash or online?” Now, whether the driver accepts your ride or not depends on your answers to these questions. The driver may cancel your ride (after accepting initially) if he doesn’t prefer your chosen drop location or if you say that you are going to pay through online mode.

To solve these two challenges, Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal announced that Ola’s driver partners will now be able to see your drop location and payment mode before accepting the ride.

“Ola drivers will now see approx drop location & payment mode before accepting a ride. Enabling drivers is key to reducing cancelations,” said Aggarwal.

This means the driver partner should ideally no longer call you to enquire about your drop location and payment mode after accepting the ride. With this information visible to drivers, they can decide whether to actually take you on-board before hitting the accept button on their Ola app.

Now, there are two sides to this. The good thing is that drivers will no longer call you to know your ride details and you can also expect drivers to not cancel your ride after accepting it. Cancellations from the driver’s side are expected to decrease and if someone accepts your Ola booking you can expect him or her to fulfil the same. But, on the other hand, there’s a catch as well. If you are stuck somewhere far from any prominent landmarks then the chances of getting a cab decreases as well. At least, earlier, you could negotiate with the driver over a call and work out some ‘deal’. But with this update, it may take longer for you to find a cab if you are stuck at some remote place or if there’s too much traffic on a particular route.

Having said that, this change is expected to improve the overall cab booking experience for frequent Ola users.