Name: Isaac Jipsy (Bsc Hon. & MBA)
Age: 34
Current occupation: Entrepreneur
Province/Country: Papua New Guinea
Name of Start-Up: “PomTaxi Hub”
When did you start your entrepreneurial journey and how did it start?
My entrepreneurial journey accelerated after being accepted into the 2017 Kumul Game Changers Program.
How did you come up with that idea and what motivated you to pursue?
Law and Order issues continue to be a hindrance to the safety for all Papua New Guineans as it poses serious risks to travelers also. Violent crimes, including carjacking, armed robberies, and sexual assault are most common in urban areas like Port Moresby as such commuting on Public transport from one place to another is quite risky at times especially after hours and evenings.
No doubt we all had our fair share of experience and encountered situations that we thought the next turn or the next step we take could possible see the end of our lives.
PomTaxi hub is one new startup created by a Papua New Guinean for Papua New Guineans to address safety, security and reliability issues with taxi services in Port Moresby.
A Papuan New Guinean entrepreneur and Kumul GameChanger from the KGC 2017 cohort Isaac Jipsy shares his ordeal while trying to imagine what an average Papua New Guinean women or girl would go through as well.
One Friday afternoon (early 2018), I decided to work late and called my wife to pick me up at 9pm. Due to some issues with the car, she was unable to come and asked me to take a taxi instead. I called few of my friends but they were busy. So I thought of Blackswan Secure Transport App (launch recently to provide safe transportation like UBER). I downloaded the app in my phone and started to order a ride home, but the total fare charged was K110. I cancelled it since I only had K30. My work place was quite a distance from the main road where the taxis were. So I had no choice, but to walk. Few of my colleagues were robbed during lunch hour (broad daylight) on that portion of the road. To be honest, that few minutes of walk was a scary experience – seemed like forever. There were no street lights and the area was pitched black. As I strolled along, I could hear my heart pounding and was sweating profusely until I finally got on a taxi – what a relief. While in the taxi, I thought about people who go through the similar experience, but become victims of physical/sexual harassment, robbery etc. What if these victims are my mothers, sisters, wife or daughter? Can I do something about this? As I pondered along, that’s when the “PomTaxi Hub “ Startup was born.
What do you hope to solve from your start-up and how will it benefit Papua New Guineans?
PomTaxi Hub is an initiative to improve and modernize the taxi services in Port Moresby. This includes providing safe, reliable, fast and affordable services for Papua New Guineans, expatriates and international visitors in the capital city.
The PomTaxi Hub is registered with the Investment Promotion Authority and the Internal Revenue Commission respectively.
After screening taxis from a pool of new and existing taxi operators in Port Moresby, few will be selected to participate in this initiative. Based on a Memorandum of Agreement signed, we will ensure that our standards are adequately understood, met and maintained. These new and existing taxi operators will have their taxis registered under the PomTaxi Hub or use its brand name.
This initiative is established on three pillars:
What’s the current progress of the start-up?
My technical team are developing two mobile applications and they will be completed by August 2018. Then the trail phase will commence in September i.e. the latest.
These two mobile apps will be used by the drivers and passengers. All new and existing taxi operators like City Loop, Premier, Tuliat Tuliat, Comfort Taxis etc’s drivers have shown interest to sign up. As the name suggest, the PomTaxi Hub will be the one stop shop for modernized taxi services in Port Moresby.
In summary, below are some of its interesting features:
- Real-time location tracking for all cars, drivers and users
- Real time notifications to the drivers and passengers on any security issue, traffic congestion etc so that these locations can be avoided.
- Panic button-During emergency situation, passengers or drivers will use that to seek immediate help from their emergency contacts.
- Driver Management system
- Taxi Operators have separate admin access to see everything about their driver’s day from the time they log in, get a booking, locate clients, start trip, complete trip, cash collected and eventually log out at the end of the day
- Able to see pickup and drop-off location and cancellation details
- Have drivers rewarding system.
- Monitor the performance of every cars and drivers through its online/offline system.
- Passenger Management system
How this how a passenger will use the app to order taxi:
- First s/he signs up and logs in
- Selects a pickup location
- Enters the destination point.
- Order sent to any nearby taxi available.
- After driver accepts, the passenger gets confirmation that the driver is coming.
- Passenger will be able to view the drivers profile and track his arrival on Google map all from the app
- After completing the journey, passenger can either pay Cash or via etfpos installed in all our taxis
- Finally, the passenger rates his or her experience by giving 1 – 5 stars and comment which we (also other taxi owners) can use to evaluate level of services provided by each drivers.
We will also partner with various key and relevant government, non – government and private organizations that will contribute meaningfully to a successful roll-out of this initiative before the APEC main meeting in November 2018.
