I can’t imagine any transit vehicle in india with just one passenger

I was just making a argument. While deciding a route based on votes, it may show 20-30 people(which can be faked).

But in reality this would be used by 1 person. This route can then be cancelled if the service provider wants due to lower number of passenger(low cash flow).

Then votes should cost some money for the winners.

That makes sense. If it has something similar to a subscription or pre-paid model, then the chances for these kinda scams would get low.

Which would punish low income folks for no real reason.

How? If you want to use the service you pay anyway, right? If you want a particular route you should have some stake in it. (Low-income / low-wealth / poor people ought to get vouchers and/or welfare payments - preferably as a gradual negative income tax.)

How about we give the low income folks money every month rather than crippling the resource-allocation system everyone relies on?

How will that help ?