Online taxi firm targets driver welfare in battle against Uber

A 30-year old American techie based in Nairobi is taking on ride-hailing giant Uber with his own taxi app dubbed Maramoja.

Jason Eisen chose Nairobi as the cradle of Maramoja, which means right away in Kiswahili after repeatedly being frustrated when dealing with regular cabbies.

He had heard tales of abduction, assault and mugging carried by taxi drivers with ill motives that had for long scared potential customers from regular taxis.

Moreover he was also aware to the fact that most riders now prefer calling up drivers with whom they have developed mutual trust from previous engagements.

Such is the kind of background that inspired Mr Eisen to develop the Maramoja app as solution to the security concerns of taxi customers.

Despite the increased availability of taxi apps in the country, background checks on the drivers are usually not guaranteed by the service providers.

Mr Eisen said Maramoja is an application that not only helps users hail a cab but also offers a trustworthy cab driver.

Maramoja uses artificial intelligence to assign the driver a trust score, arrived at from a rider’s phonebook contacts and social media friends.

The trust engine is based on a graph data base with variances on the most preferred driver by evaluating who among a user’s friends picked the driver among other factors.

These are some of the factors that Maramoja Transport Limited considers to get a personalised understanding of the drivers prior to hiring them.

The app automatically uses Global Positioning System and Wi-Fi to set a customer’s pick up location. Available vehicle options pop up and on tapping on the icons, rates for the option selected appear.

Once a customer identifies a driver, they can monitor his progress towards the pickup spot and make payments through the app.

“We help riders find their favourite taxis and personalised fleet of back-up options, so they always have a closely trusted ride,” said Mr Eisen, chief executive at Maramoja Transport.

He holds a Bachelors degree in International Relations from the American University based in Washington DC.
Unlike its competitors, Maramoja charges are fixed and no extra cost are attached in case of traffic on the roads.

Maramoja accepts mobile money payments such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money in addition to cash and credit card.

The drivers are impressed upon to take the most direct route to a destination to avoid inconveniencing customers.
Mr Eisen, 30, co-founded the company in the country alongside Bastian Blankenburg, currently the chief technology officer and Polina Kazak, the company’s creative director.

He mooted the idea of launching the app in the Kenyan market after having bad experiences each time he visited.
His work as a consultant at a humanitarian organisation based at the US meant that he had to spend most of his time in East Africa.

“Every time I came, we had every manner of transport problems you could imagine, including drunk drivers and others keen on ripping foreigners,” he said.

On returning to Washington in November 2012, the exact opposite was the case with all forms of transport he used powered by technology.

It is this state of affairs that made the shrewd business man embark on a mission to improve the lives of Kenyans, people he said he had grown fond of.

Three months later, he quit his lucrative consultancy job and moved to Kenya to fully focus on making the app work.

It has been one year since the app went live in Nairobi in March 2015, a journey Mr Eisen said has not been short of challenges.

“So far we have weathered the storms to grow at 45 per cent month on month,” he said, adding that to date, a total of 700 drivers have been recruited to the company.

Sense of belonging

He said as a way of being mindful of the drivers’ welfare, the company has negotiated fuel prices with Total petrol stations and was also facilitating them to buy cars.

The drivers are paid commissions for every referral made alongside the salary they make in a given month.

This, Mr Eisen said makes the drivers feel a sense of belonging and compels them to conduct themselves courteously and maintain the trust with clients.

The biggest way of sales traction has been through customer referrals and social media using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

The company is raising money to scale up with plans to roll out in other counties within the country in the next one year.

Maramoja Transport emerged second runners up at this year’s Sankalp African Summit, an event that focuses on showcasing the best business ideas.

The company was among the 13 enterprises selected from 250 shortlisted candidates from the 500 who applied to be reviewed.

Among things the panelists considered at the event which took place at the Kenya School of Government in February are business ideas that are globally relevant but firmly embedded locally.

The company was selected to participate in this year’s Seedstars World Summit that is been held in Switzeland starting yesterday.

The event will bring together the top 63 startups selected from 6,000 applicants from 55 emerging markets across the world.

Maramoja can be downloaded from the Google Play store.

Kenya is now emerging as a battleground for taxi hailing apps - where platforms such as Uber, Easy Taxi, Pewin, and Maramoja have pitched tent - underlines Nairobi’s position as an innovation hub, churning out tech novelties such as M-Pesa and mobile apps.

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