Ride-share in fast lane
CARMAKER COMES ABOARD: DAIMLER AG LEAD INVESTOR IN TAXIFY BID
Fundraising drive for planned expansion in Europe and Africa.
hen the up-andcoming ride-hailing app Taxify announced a US$175 million (R2.4 billion) fund-raising round in May, it sent shock waves through the world of on-demand transport apps. Not because the amount was so large – after all, Uber’s value if it lists on the stock market was put at $120 billion last month.
The surprise was the lead investor: Daimler AG, parent company of Mercedes-Benz. It suggested
a determination by vehicle manufacturers to be an integral part of the ride-sharing future.
Almost as surprising was the purpose of the investment: expansion in Europe and Africa. The former was predictable. The latter was startling.
Taxify, founded in Estonia in 2013, was launched in South Africa in 2016, three years after Uber chose Johannesburg for its first service in Africa. Taxify still struggles to gain traction, while Uber has become a household name in SA. That doesn’t give the pioneer room for complacency, though. With Taxify building a war chest to invest in new markets and new capabilities, Uber has to keep upping its act.
The good news and the bad news for Uber is that there is plenty
that needs improving or fixing.
The default Uber map that guides drivers to their passengers’ destination is decidedly inferior to Waze, and many drivers in fact prefer to use the Google-owned traffic app. Pick-up locations are often presented differently to drivers and the passengers. Safety features are not obvious.
These and other issues were clearly on Uber’s collective mind when it recently sent out its global product head, Sachin Kansal from San Francisco, to unveil new safety features for the South African market.
The most significant of these, an emergency button in the app, is tailor-made for SA. To some extent, so is a new safety centre, designed to provide users with more information on both their rides and the local environment.
“Think of it as an education hub,” said Kansal, who is responsible for building safety into the app. “It educates users on what we do for their safety and what they can do for their own safety, such as what they should do before they get in a car.
“It includes simple suggestions that are very relevant to the location. South Africa has suggestions that are different to the US. South Africa emphasises the need to check the licence plate of the vehicle you’re getting in and check the driver’s name.”
Kansal said Uber realised that users were sharing their trip destinations or estimated time of arrival to the same contacts over and over again.
As a result, it brought to the fore a near-hidden feature allowing users to create a trusted contact list of people with whom location can be shared.
“We also noticed that users are a little bit more concerned about night trips, so night trips can be automatically shared with a trusted contact.”
The emergency assistance button is available to riders and