SafariShare · 1 December 2019 · 2 min read
We launched SafariShare this month. Here is why we built it.
Every day, thousands of private cars travel Uganda's intercity roads carrying one or two people, while passengers stand at taxi parks negotiating with touts for the same route. Both sides have what the other needs. Nobody has connected them.
The cost of that gap is not just inconvenience. It is money. A bus ticket from Kampala to Mbarara costs more than the fuel for a private car covering the same distance. Drivers absorb that cost alone. Passengers pay full fare for a service that is slower, less comfortable, and less direct than a shared private car.
Traffic congestion around Kampala gets worse every year. Most vehicles on Entebbe Road, Jinja Road, and the Northern Bypass carry one person. The observation that started SafariShare was simple: ride sharing can help reduce this mess.
SafariShare is a carpooling platform: a place where drivers post intercity trips and passengers find and book seats in private cars heading the same direction.
The value proposition is simple. Drivers offset their fuel costs. Passengers pay less than a bus ticket and travel more comfortably. Roads carry more people per vehicle. Emissions fall.
We built mobile-first because that is where Ugandans are. We integrated mobile money because that is how Ugandans pay. We require phone verification because trust between strangers needs a starting point.
We are incorporated as Voyage Technologies (U) Ltd. We have roughly 900 users as the year ends.
We know carpooling is the right starting point. We do not yet know the full shape of what Uganda's transport problem requires.
What we do know is that the information gap between people who need to move and the capacity that could move them is real, daily, and costly. SafariShare exists to close it. We are starting with shared private cars. We will follow the problem wherever it leads.