AFRICA – Set-your-own-price taxi app, inDriver has expanded its reach into Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.
The app’s Real Time Deal (RTD) model allows passengers to set their own fare for their chosen route. Nearby drivers who receive notice of ride requests have three choices – accept the fare offered, ignore the offer or bargain for a higher price.
“We designed the app to combat algorithms used by other ride-hailing companies, which rack up prices because of peak hours, traffic and request history,” says inDriver spokesperson, Rifqa Carr.
To book a trip, riders enter their current location and destination as well as the price they are willing to pay. “Passengers using the app pay on average 20-30% less than with other services. We do have a fare minimum, which is region-specific, but the final fare is set by both rider and driver in a real-time negotiation,” continues Carr.
InDriver is also said to benefits drivers, with 0% commission charged for the first six to 12 months of operation on the platform. “Drivers have the freedom to choose whichever ride request they like, without any risk of being penalised. They’re also able to see the full fare, from point A to point B, and can then decide if they want to accept the request – or not,” concludes Carr.
Since its launch earlier this year in South African cities Cape Town and Johannesburg, the ride-hailing service is now officially live in Durban, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, with over 1 000 new drivers already registered in each city.
InDriver is an international online ride-hailing service headquartered in New York and used by 24 million people across more than 200 cities. It is one of the top taxi apps in the world in terms of downloads, and is present in the US, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia among many other countries.
inDriver is the brainchild of Arsen Tomsky. It was launched in Yakutsk, Russia in 2012. In 2013, a stand-alone app (inDriver) started being developed based on the Real-Time Deals (RTD) model and a year later expanded in the neighbouring areas such as Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Vladivostok before going international in Astana, Kazakstan.
With a promising growing number of users, LETA Capital, a Russian VC firm gave them $15milllion that helped the company expand internationally and they also moved to New York.
