Domino’s Will Now Deliver To India’s Public Rail System

Domino’s will now deliver to India’s public rail system, taking on a new adventure, one that could either greatly improve their business or put it in the dumps. Pizza deliverymen, like postmen, are used to facing all sorts of weather to get their pizzas out there, but the notoriously chaotic rail system in India might just be their match.

This service launched in February, and since that time, it has begun delivering pizzas to more than 200 train lines in India. The service works by having the customer place their order by tweet, phone, text, or online at least 2 hours before the train is scheduled to arrive. A Domino’s employee will then meet the customer at the train stop, where they can pick up their pizza. The company is seeking to add dozens more pizza delivery routes to the complex system of rails within the next year.

The service hasn’t taken off immediately. Only 350 pizzas have been ordered, total, since the launch of the program. However, Domino’s administration seems to be very optimistic about the service.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us,” a senior vice-president for Domino’s in India, Harneet Rajpal, told the Wall Street Journal.

However, the service makes being a Domino’s delivery person very difficult. India’s public rail system is known for either being late or failing to run, which means that the delivery person could show up with a pizza and sit there for an hour or more until the customer finds them.

It can also be extremely difficult to find the customer in the midst of the hundreds of passengers filling up the platforms and sprinting to their destinations. Oftentimes, the pizza never gets delivered, and other times the train begins to run before the deliveryman gets a chance to disembark.

It’s a service that, while well-intentioned, cannot be guaranteed. However, fast food in India is becoming more and more popular, and Domino’s is at the forefront. There are tens of millions of people using the Indian public rail system every single day. If this service can become successful, it will mean incredible growth for the company.

From there, other fast food delivery services will follow. In fact, Subway, Pizza Hut, and KFC chains in India are already working with the railway authorities to help them work out the service as well.

“Nobody has heard of pizzas on trains before,” Robin Kalita, a director of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s all so new. Even we’re still learning.”

Despite the major learning curve associated with this new service, it seems that Domino’s will continue to deliver to India’s public rail system, come high water or late trains.

[Image via Time]