inDriver, a Russian price-haggling site headquartered in New York has launched in Lagos, Nigeria to allow its users to negotiate prices for their rides.
The company, which is already available in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and Harare, allows passengers to bargain their fares with nearby drivers who can choose to accept the fare offered, ignore the offer or bargain for a higher price.
“Until today, taxi services in Nigeria did not leave any choice for local residents when it came to the cost of the trip. Users were only offered to agree to the price specified in the application or on the taxi counter. inDriver came to change this situation. We want customers and drivers to independently and directly determine the fare and favorable price for each trip. Already today, residents of Lagos using inDriver will be able to make sure that the cost of travel can be significantly lower than the usual prices,” said Egor Fedorov, Chief Marketing Officer.
The firm says it has already signed up more than 6,000 drivers in Lagos an is giving drivers access to the platform without any commission for their first six years.
inDriver works simply. When a passenger hails a ride, drivers are not automatically assigned to riders but they have the opportunity to counteroffer the passengers’ price giving the power of selection to the passenger depending on the suitable price.
inDriver was founded in Yakutsk, the coldest city in the coldest place in the world – Siberia. In 2012, during the New Year’s holidays, the temperature dropped below -45C and local taxi drivers simultaneously doubled the cost of trips around the city. Then, on the wave of people’s indignation, college students have created a group “Independent drivers, indrivers” in the social network “VKontakte”.
Participants of the group published where they wanted to go and the price that they were willing to pay for the trip, drivers contacted customers and carried out orders. In just six months, 50,000 participants joined the group, and it continued to grow. A year later inDriver was founded on the basis of the group’s free peer-to-peer model. This is how inDriver was born, from the first day opposing the dictates of centralized services and taxi services.
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All ride terms are determined in the course of instant bargain between drivers and passengers, without using opaque, closed algorithms prone to price manipulation.The cost of rides with inDriver is always lower, because the Real Time Deals model helps to set the optimal cost for a passenger and driver in every single second.Payments are made directly from passengers to drivers with cash and non-cash ways. This allows to reduce costs and maintain lower tariffs in the system.
inDriver gives freedom of choice to 29 million people worldwideinDriver works both in small towns with a population of 7-8 thousand inhabitants, often with weak Internet and without maps of the settlement, and in the large megacities with the highest level of competition, inDriver successfully adapts to the needs of local people of any populated area.
Today, inDriver is one of the top 10 ride-hailing and taxi apps worldwide by downloads. The company continues its active international expansion, allowing more and more users to determine optimal ride terms and protect them from price manipulation.
