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BlaBlaCar brings its leading carpooling platform to Vietnam, expands global presence into Southeast Asia. July 30, 2026 World's largest intercity carpooling network enters Vietnam amid fuel-price volatility, reduce corridor congestion, and complement existing transit infrastructure through cost sharing between drivers and travellers. BlaBlaCar, the world's leading carpooling platform with 30 million annual active members, announces its availabity of its platform in Vietnam. This expansion is part of the company's first presence in Southeast Asia and is part of a greater expansion program that brings BlaBlaCar's total global footprint to 41 countries. Alongside Vietnam, the platform is also available in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The platform connects private drivers who have available seats on planned intercity journeys with passengers traveling to the same destination, allowing both parties to share the cost of the trip. An affordable alternative amid fuel cost pressures The arrival comes at a moment when fuel price volatility continues to affect transport and household budgets across Vietnam. 2026 has seen Vietnam's petrol prices top 29,000 VND per liter for RON95 fuel, around 45% higher than typical 2025 prices, and underscoring the value of solutions that help drivers offset day-to-day travel costs. Carpooling addresses this directly. The average BlaBlaCar trip carries 2.1 passengers, meaning drivers can offset more than half their fuel and toll costs by sharing expenses. The platform's pricing tool calculates a fair contribution per passenger based on local fuel rates and route distance - capping fees at cost recovery, not profit. Between March and May 2026 alone, BlaBlaCar registered more than 600,000 new drivers globally, a sign of growing appetite for cost-sharing mobility solutions around the world. "Our platform offers users a practical solution for city-to-city mobility. In an increasingly digital-minded society where we are all looking for ways to save money and limit our impact on the environment, BlaBlaCar makes the drive between two cities easier by creating a connection, splitting costs and limiting the number of individual cars on the road," said Nicolas Brusson, co-Founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar. How BlaBlaCar works Carpooling through BlaBlaCar is a three-step process: * Drivers post their planned trip - origin, destination, date, available seats and suggested cost - on the BlaBlaCar app (free on Apple and Android stores) or website. * Passengers search for trips matching their route and confirm their spot directly through the platform. * Both parties travel together, sharing fuel and toll costs for the journey. The model offers a flexible and social alternative, particularly for medium-distance intercity routes sometimes where travelers are looking for more flexible options and reduces the number of single-driver vehicles on the road. "We are excited to bring BlaBlaCar to Vietnam and bring our carpooling model to travellers across Vietnam," said Nicolas Brusson. "Around the world, as we see more and more users connect to BlaBlaCar, the platform offers an alternative to travelling solo by private vehicles and a complementary extension of traditional transportation systems." A trusted community of 30 million annual active carpoolers BlaBlaCar's success since its founding in France in 2006 is based on community trust. The platform includes several features designed to make every journey safer and more reliable: * Verified profiles: Members can verify their identity, phone number and email address to build trust within the community and strengthen their profile credibility. * Ratings and reviews: After each journey, both drivers and passengers rate their experience. Members can consult a traveler's full review history before confirming a booking. * Customer service and content moderation: A dedicated team review user reports and platform activity to support compliance with community guidelines and maintain a safe environment for all users.

BlaBlaCar is shutting down its bus division in France. April 22, 2026 BlaBlaCar has announced plans to shut down its loss-making BlaBlaCar Bus service, which would leave its rival, Flixbus, without any competition/BlaBlaCar By the end of 2026, BlaBlaCar will cease its operations as a bus carrier in France. This will result in the loss of 40 jobs of the company's total workforce of 800 employees. BlaBlaCar, which also serves various destinations in Belgium, will, however, continue to sell bus tickets for independent bus companies. Highly competitive market. According to BlaBlaCar, the bus routes are unprofitable, and there is no prospect of improvement due to a persistent imbalance between rising operating costs and a highly competitive market, with German FlixBus as the main competitor. BlaBlaCar Bus and Flixbus account for nearly 94% of French traffic. But there is also fierce competition from the TGV and the SNCF's low-cost OUIGO trains. BlaBlaCar works with about 60 subcontractors but bears the financial risk. The subcontractors are paid regardless of the buses' occupancy rates. However, BlaBlaCar's decision is causing significant concern among these subcontractors, and there are fears that some of them - often smaller regional family businesses - will also suffer as a result. Higher fares soon? The point is that long-distance bus transport was deregulated in France in 2015, precisely to foster competition and drive down prices. Until then, long-distance travel had been a state monopoly reserved for the train. Ten years later, the result is paradoxical: competition has driven prices down so sharply that operators can no longer sustain their operations. BlaBlaCar Bus is the latest to go under, following several smaller players that already went out of business in the early years. BlaBlaCar Bus serves all major French cities: Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Rennes, Nantes, Strasbourg, and Clermont-Ferrand. Major airports are also connected. The busiest routes are Lille-Paris, Paris-Rouen, and Le Havre-Paris, as well as cross-country routes such as Clermont-Ferrand-Lyon and Bordeaux-Grenoble. But without a rival, European market leader FlixBus, which now effectively holds a monopoly, no longer faces any pressure to keep its fares low. France does have public regional bus networks, but no public operator for long-distance routes, which were left to the free market. Travelers who benefited from the price war between the two platforms for a Paris-Lyon trip at €5 may soon face higher fares, especially given higher fuel prices driven by the war in the Middle East. And especially young people will feel the impact of the suspension of bus services, as two-thirds of BlaBlaCar Bus customers are under 35. Continue to sell bus tickets. BlaBlaCar does intend to continue selling bus tickets on behalf of bus companies, as it already does for international routes. The company, which also sells train tickets, "wants to strengthen its role as a marketplace in France by supporting independent coach partners who wish to operate routes." Management will discuss the plans with employee representatives. For now, nothing will change, and bus service remains guaranteed. At least 12 routes in Belgium. The French company originally started as a carpooling platform, but after acquiring the loss-making Ouibus from the French railway company SNCF, BlaBlaCar also became a long-distance bus company in 2019, serving more than 400 destinations across Europe. But since the acquisition of Ouibus for €101 million, the company has never made any money from this business, although revenue from the bus division reached €115 million last year, double the 2019 figure. In Belgium, BlaBlaCar made negative headlines in 2022 when one of the company's buses was involved in a serious traffic accident on the E19 in Schoten while traveling from Paris to Amsterdam. Two people were killed, and several others were seriously injured. The driver had used cannabis and had previously been convicted multiple times for driving under the influence. The Belgian routes - at least 12 in total - include Brussels-Nantes, Brussels-Marseille, Lyon-Brussels, Utrecht-Brussels, and Paris-Bruges, as well as Cologne-Liège and various routes from Antwerp to Poland. Loading...