A new ride-hailing company from Russia has joined the growing number of similar companies to compete for the average African’s buck. This new company is from Russia and is called inDriver. inDriver’s first market is Arusha, Tanzania.
According to the story on the website, inDriver was founded in Yakutsk, Siberia. It was borne out of the need to oppose the dictates of centralized services and taxi drivers in that city. The interesting story states that “In 2012, during the New Year’s holidays, the temperature dropped below -45C. And during that time taxi services have raised fares by one and a half times in one day. 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 the group became part of the company “Sinet”, which developed on its basis a high-tech peer-to-peer transportation service. This is how inDriver was born, from the first day opposing the dictates of centralized services and taxi services.”
Founded by Chief Executive Officer Arsen Tomsky, inDriver differentiates itself from Uber or Taxify by allowing passengers enter what they want to spend on a trip — and drivers nearby use the app to accept or bargain for more. Typically, Uber and other similar apps assign fares using algorithms that account for peak hours, traffic or even what they think a customer requesting a ride is willing to pay.
According to Quartz, inDriver is hoping to rapidly grow its driver pool by charging no commissions on driver earnings for six months after which it will begin charging 5% to 8% in commissions—much lower than either Uber or Taxify.
inDriver currently operates in nine other countries across South and Central America as well as Europe.
