Eastleigh, Upper Hill top taxi-hailing rides on thriving business

Eastleigh and Upper Hill are the leading areas that record the highest number of digital cab requests in Nairobi, underlining their status as key business hubs in the city.

Over the years, Eastleigh has grown to be a leading commercial hub, popularly referred to as Mogadishu Ndogo (Little Mogadishu).

The area is now a recognised centre for retail and wholesale business for consumer goods like clothes, handbags, shoes, curtains, carpets and food spices.

The area has more than 20 wholesale malls, according to Google Maps.

Shoppers have been driving the demand for taxi services, given the convenience, the cabs provide in ferrying their goods directly home compared to doing so in matatus, which only ply routes to the city centre from the area.

An analysis of demand for taxi-hailing services by Bolt also showed other areas such as Westlands and the Nairobi central business district in the top of the list.

Bolt country manager Ola Akinnusi said most areas that recorded high activity in requests usually tend to have low public transport availability.

Upper Hill, which has emerged as a new destination of choice for large local and multinational corporations, is one such area. It also hosts the Milimani Law Courts and several major hospitals, which attract high human traffic.

Although there are public service vehicles plying routes in the Upper Hill, many of the common destinations are well out of the way of these PSVs, making it convenient and sometimes necessary for people to use cabs when going there from the city centre.

Westlands, an affluent, mixed-use commercial and residential neighbourhood in Nairobi, boasts dozens of restaurants and global hotels such as Villa Rosa Kempinski and Movenpick. It also has a busy nightclub scene, which means that the area will invariably see high cab requests, given that revellers and hotel guests are among the most common users of the service.

According to Mr Akinnusi, the Nairobi downtown is also a hub for requests, with people avoiding using their cars due to parking space challenges.

“Nairobi CBD also has a high number of requests. One possibility could be to avoid paying parking fee as people move from one office or premise to another, especially for those who own cars and work within CBD,” says Mr Akinnusi.

“The majority of these requests are short distance rides, just within the town centre.”

Despite the increasing usage for the service, the analysis showed riders have been economical on their spending in terms of the cost of the ride.

Bolt reported that most riders requested low–engine capacity vehicles, which charge less than the larger vehicles.

Most companies have introduced different car transportation options for the riders including those to cater for quick errands that tend to be affordable and larger ones for a higher quality experience.

Ride to work

A review by both Bolt and fellow hailing firm Uber shows the usage for digital cab services has been spreading across the week, moving away from just visiting friends and family, social outings on weekends, shopping and airport.

The reports show that most Kenyans have been taking the digital cab rides for regular commutes to work. The usage has also expanded among the youth due to the affordable rates and short distances covered.

This comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has forced people to adopt social distancing rules and pushed passengers to avoid congested PSVs.

The vehicles that serve as the main mobility options for city dwellers have struggled to observe the rules by the government in reducing the carrying capacity by almost half.

Full capacity

The public service vehicles are now restricted to half their carrying capacity.

However, some vehicles have flaunted this, carrying to full capacity, especially nearing the curfew hour and increasing the fares.

“Covid-19 has impacted the way people move around, especially when it comes to social distancing and using shared vehicles,” Brian Njao, head of Uber East Africa said.

According to Bolt, morning hours between 6am and 10pm and evenings from 4pm to 8pm see a surge in the city as a majority of commuters are heading to work and back respectively.

“Hours between 11am and 3:30pm are not as active as many people are either in their businesses or in the office,” Mr Akinnusi.

On the other hand, Uber has found that the busiest times tend to be in the morning from 7am-9am during the week.

“This is the peak time for people commuting and the majority of riders are heading from the suburbs, into the centre of the city. In the evening: 5pm-7pm. Riders are heading home on their return commute, back from the city to the suburbs,” says Mr Njao.

Currently, Uber is recording demand at all times of the day with an average time of 24 minutes spent on a ride.

The easing of containment measures taken by the government and international countries, including shut down on local borders and ban of travel, and reopening of leaning institutions, entertainment joints and growing business activity is pushing the demand for the rides to almost the pre-pandemic levels.

“We have seen higher requests from the airport, hotels, universities, business centres, shopping malls and from the city centre, however, this trend changes depending on what’s happening in that week,” says Uber.

“Before there was also a higher number of tourists using Uber to travel to and from top tourist destinations.”

In the pre-pandemic times, demand for rides was always at its peak on the weekend, especially on Friday and Saturday nights from 5pm-5am.

“You’d find most of the demand coming from riders heading to and from your city’s main restaurant and nightlife hot spots, says Mr Njao.

“However, we have seen this trend shift due to the pandemic and curfew times and have seen more people taking trips to run errands and do their weekly shopping.”

Trends

In a survey done by German development agency, GIZ in December 2019 in the Nairobi metropolitan area, 58 per cent said they had used ride-hailing services in the past.

Of the respondents who had used ride-hailing service, 75 per cent had used it because of its faster commuting time even though they cost more than using public transport.

“This suggests that city dwellers are willing to pay a premium for speed and convenience,” the report stated.

The report also added that personal vehicles came third after traditional taxis as alternatives to ride-hailing.

“This may partly be due to low car ownership in the country, as well as an indication of the fact ride-hailing is not only a substitute for privately owned vehicles but mostly public transport,” it added.

Uber pointed out that the pandemic has, however, led to transitions affecting the way business will be conducted in the industry.

This includes increased adoption for online shopping, pushing up the demand for courier services, boosting motorcycle hailing services.