In a bid to democratise taxi service in Nigeria and make it affordable to all and sundry, Taxigo, a bespoke taxi platform that connects licensed taxi drivers and companies as well as private drivers to clients is launched in Lagos today.
Coming at a time people need more options to the offerings of the two players in the taxi
Space, Taxigo is set to bring about a disruption in the space with tailor made services that will make commuting within Lagos and Nigeria as a whole easy, affordable, safe and convenient.
This is made possible by its new features that will make taxi and private drivers access more passengers as well as make more money in the process.
The Co-founder of Taxigo Nigeria, Thomas Ajayi, spoke about the app.
He said, “Although, this app is new in the Nigeria market, It has been hugely successful in other markets like Estonia which is also a home for Taxify, another ride-sharing app. Taxigo is actually bigger there. Taxigo, has a huge potential here, especially at a time like this when drivers from all over the world are getting increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated with Uber and Taxify”.
On the app’s unique selling proposition, Godswill Nkwusi, co-founder of the platform said, “Taxigo is about empowering taxi companies and driver. With the Taxigo app, every taxi company will still keep their brand, pricing tactics and clients.
“Pricing with Taxigo is not standard as we don’t have any pricing models. Every taxi company in our system and every driver, can make their own business with prices they think are adequate at the moment. No driver is under pressure at all. If he wants to get more money for a trip, he can choose from 10 different price-levels he has set for himself and can switch in between them in seconds.“ The good thing is that this will not affect passengers in anyway because they have freedom to choose the taxi they ride base on price, quality among other factors they can see from the phone before the engage driver’s services.
“Contrary to what it may seem, the app makes the client king as he gets to choose from a wide variety. Client can also compare base tariffs and tariffs per time and kilometre. He can also calculate the final cost of a trip even before he engages the driver to avoid surprise charges.
“Another reason for drivers to love Taxigo is quite low commissions. If Uber takes 25% and taxify 15% in Lagos form drivers, then Taxigo is totally happy with 10-14%. Who works more, gets smaller commission,” he says.
Taxigo also comes with an innovative work-sharing initiative, a concept that is totally new in taxi-world. “Taxigo itself is bringing new work by both application and call dispatch-centre equally to all drivers and taxi companies. This is the only part that public can see,” Godswill explains.
Unlike other brands in the market, Taxigo is also taking orders from mobile phones that have no internet connections as a dispatch number will be made available to the public soon.