App to ease transport hickups

Five young entrepreneurs said NAMELAAPP which is a mobile application they recently launched is going to transform the transportation business in Botswana. The entrepreneurs who operate a transportation business called Triumph Transport and Logistics said the App is going to easily connect the service providers and the customers.

In an interview with The Patriot on Sunday, Triumph Transport and Logistics Director Gabaitse Banda said their innovation was inspired by need to move with the ever changing customer needs and as a way to help reduce the spread of covid 19 pandemic.

“We have been running taxi business for the last four years and currently we have 10 taxis in Mahalapye and 1 in Borolong around Francistown, so we decided to be innovative and we decided to develop a mobile application which we called Namela, the application will make it easy for both service providers and their clients as they will be able to connect at the tap of a phone,” he said.

Banda said the services that are provided on the App include taxi special, cab services, truck services and car rentals. “Everything the client need is on the phone, for example if the client need a taxi, the best part is that instead of waiting on the road to flag down a taxi all they can do is by simply making a few taps on their mobile screen on NAMELAAPP, it will automatically notify the nearest free taxi in your area and giving it instructions to reach you using GPS.

He said both service providers and clients need a smartphone with GPS to access the app. “”The App needs a smartphone with GPS so that the driver can easily locate you, there is also an app messenger feature that allows the driver and the customer to further communicate their proposed deal before the driver can initiate the trip, and the messenger is free of charge,” said Banda.

Furthermore he said the application comes with benefits that can be valuable to both parties. “The APP comes with benefits that I believe can be useful to Batswana, firstly safety for both the service providers and customers, they had been incidents of taxi and cab drivers experiencing violence, through this APP we can trace and follow with whom the driver had been in contact with because every movement will be recorded,” he said.

“The mobile application can also reduce transmission rate of COVID 19 by reducing contacts in taxis and overcrowding at taxi stations and bus ranks, it also store users information and drivers information making it easier to do contact tracing,” he added.

Moreover, Triumph Transport and Logistics director said they intend to create employment for Batswana through the mobile application. In the long run we intend to open service points around the country and basically we are going to create employment for Batswana especially IT specialists,”

Banda said the mobile application is not going to affect the charges paid by customers to use a taxi, cabs or any other mode of transport. “”We will only be charging service providers that is drivers a monthly subscription because there are the ones who will be benefiting as we will be providing them with customers through our app,” he said.

He further said they have also approached service providers like mascom and orange who had agreed to work with them to make the app accessible to the customers at a cheaper rate. “We have approached Mascom wireless and Orange Botswana who has agreed to give us zero rates where clients can use the app without data, so they are drawing up a contract which we hope to sign soon,” he said.

Meanwhile Banda said the mobile app which was launched 3 weeks back have received a good reception from both service providers and customers. “We have had good reception, people are starting to embrace the APP, we have more than 200 customers and 80 drivers who are currently using it…however we are also looking at the bigger picture as we plan to launch the mobile application in other countries in the future,” he said.

Banda said NAMELLAAPP is currently on Google play store and it is ready for use.