If you have roots or businesses upcountry and don’t own a car, you properly understand the hustle of having to use public means with predetermined stops and schedules. Plus costs of going that are not bargain-able. If you get a friend or someone you know and they offer a space to take you, you’d willingly give them even 50% of what you’d have used as appreciation for the help.
A company called YellowBIRD is in Uganda ready and equipped to bring that service to the country. Like all other ride hailing apps, YellowBIRD works with user accounts and encourages cost sharing for the trips. The most important aspect for them however is that the drivers would still have made the journey nonetheless if no one offered to hitch a ride.
In essence, it is not like there will be ready drivers willing to take you to Gulu for instance but it will be normal people going about their works and are going to Gulu but have spaces in their personal cars.
To be able to use the app, and to ensure safety, users are required to open accounts with details and copies of their National IDs and encouraged to link their accounts to their social media so that the other users can trust them.
The app goes ahead to encourage safety for especially female users by clearing showing the gender and sex of the other party in case one is not comfortable travelling with members of the opposite sex.
“We provide a flexible payment mode to the passenger: Mobile Money (Airtel, MTN, Africel,
UTL) and VISA. The user is required to pay at least 50% of the total amount of the journey.
The routes will be limited to long distance trips for now as customers get used on how it
works. The service is currently available for Uganda as pilot market. The app is available on
Google Play Store.” The app proprietors said in a statement.
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