EL home to SA’s first taxi app
Local owner eyeing national footprint
MOVE along Uber, here comes Ntuza. The local taxi app cost R100 000 to develop, but East London’s Eugene Ntuthuzelo “Ntuza” Mfaka, 50, CEO of Eugene’s Executive Shuttle fleet, is pumped up, saying once he has taken the local market, he will go national.
Mfaka says the app, which launches as a pilot on Monday, will see six drivers in his 11-strong fleet responding to messages via Ntuza for a pick-up and drop-off.
February 1 is the official launch date, with Mfaka saying he intends approaching motor dealerships and other outlets to use the app.
Drivers who want to join in, however, will have to own cars built no later than 2015.
Payment is from an account or “pocket” loaded with credits, a credit card, savings or current account or cash.
Erwin Smith, 34, head of design and technology at Sondo & Knopp media consultants in Quigney, East London, said: “It can do everything Uber does and more. It uses a lot of technology. Every part of the app is custom built. It took many, many hours and three months of coding to build.
Smith said the app had been tested “extensively” and its only glitch was it could not pinpoint a customer’s location within a 50m radius.
However, when the app spits out the customer’s address and it is out by a house or two, customers will message back to correct the address, which adjusts the tracking system, he says.
Smith said Ntuza had also gone a step ahead of Uber, which makes customers “move their finger on the app” on their screens to pin-point where they are
“A lot of people complained their finger was too thick or they could not get their position down exactly.
“Ntuza will allow people to manually tell us where they are.”
The app is available at play.google.com (search for Ntuza).
Mfaka said he had some help to develop the app, mainly funding, from Swedish development agency Sida.
“I started thinking about it in January last year. I was working as a project manager for the East Cape Development Corporation and decided to resign.
“My wife, Noxolo, asked if I had a strategy to make money once I had given up my job.”
Since then his shuttle service, started on the side in 2010, has grown so well that she now owns the business, and handles administration while he is the CEO, who never stops taking calls.
Mfaka studied engineering at the then-PE Technikon, as well as project management at Crainfield College.
“Uber is an American thing we don’t know [recognise]. I am the first and I am here in East London. I want to grow it in all provinces,” he said. — mikel@dispatch.co.za