Will commercialisation tame matatu sector?

Matatu Owners Association Chairman Simon Kimutai, left, and Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore try out the telco’s free wi-fi product dubbed Vuma Online inside a matatu in Nairobi.

By WINSLEY MASESE

Passengers will soon be able to leverage technology to report errant matatu drivers and conductors.

Kijicho, a software developed by a group of entrepreneurs and innovators, is part of efforts to streamline the public transport sector and curb road carnage.

The software allows passengers to engage the owner of a matatu or traffic police along the way if they feel they are being mistreated.

Bernard Owuor, the founder and chief officer of NikoHapa Ventures Limited, said if adopted, Kijicho will drastically reduce the number of road accidents.

Passengers will be able to engage the management or proprietor of the vehicle, which is expected to raise the expectations for customer care in the sector.

“This will allow passengers to raise issues concerning unethical practices like raising fare arbitrarily or being mistreated by a conductor or driver,” Owour said.

“Our main objective is to reduce road accidents and carelessness on the roads.”

More than 1,900 people have been killed so far this year, and thousands more injured.

“Road accidents can be reduced if the industry is streamlined. This will also improve business efficiency for those who have invested heavily in public transport.”

Road accident

Owuor lost his father as a result of a road accident and knows all too well how painful the loss of a loved one affects a home.

“I believe this software has the ability to influence decision makers in the industry to act on some issues and reduce the number of road accidents in the country.”

One of the more harrowing incidents this year was the report of a conductor who pushed out a woman from a moving matatu in Nairobi over Sh10. She was run over by a passing bus and died.

Owuor has also been harassed in a matatu before and felt frustrated that he did not have any way to communicate his feelings to either the owner of the matatu or its management.

“The conductor wanted to overcharge me, but I refused to pay the money. He tried to throw me out, but I held on,” he said.

The software was developed by Owour, two creative designers and a businesswoman who has invested in public transport but was dissatisfied with the returns.

“The businesswoman was unhappy because her crew was cheating her out of her money. They would say they had a tyre burst when they were working. They would then claim they spent the day’s collections fixing the tyre, or some similar excuse.”

Kijicho is just one of several companies angling for a slice of the multi-billion shilling public transport sector.

In April, Equity Bank and Google teamed up to create BebaPay, a payment card that allows passengers to pay their bus fare without using cash.

Free wi-fi

And mid this year, Safaricom partnered with passenger service vehicles to provide commuters with free wi-fi through routers installed in their vehicles.

The service, dubbed Vuma Online, allows passengers access to unlimited 3G internet without having to use their existing bundles.

The question now, however, is whether matatu players will take advantage of the increased interest and investment in the sector to professionalise its services and milk even more money from the corporate sector.

Already, bus companies like Double M, Citi Hoppa and Kenya Bus Service Management have been able to mint millions from firms by selling advertising space on their vehicles.

Their more organised mode of operation has endeared them to corporates.

One of the challenges stakeholders say bedevils the sector is the ad hoc nature of employment.

The general feeling is that if PSV drivers and conductors are employed on a permanent basis, they would focus more on the quality of their driving rather than on making as many trips as possible to make more money.

But it remains to be seen if the often chaotic sector will find a way to organise itself to seize growing opportunities.