The taxi hailing business in Nairobi has become quite fierce since Uber paved the way for others in January 2015. Since then, a number of taxi hailing companies have popped up to try getting a size-able piece in the taxi business.
Uber is the front-runner in this case and the road has not been smooth for them. They launched UberX in Kenya with an original pricing of 60 KES/km, 4 KES/ minute, 100 KES base fare and a minimum fare of KES 300. This was revised when Safaricom’s Little Cabs came into the picture with their revised rates where Uber slashed their price by 35%.
However, that decision did not sit well with drivers who are in the Uber ecosystem that prompted a strike and they had to come up with a revised system which they announced today. The new prices are not as high as the original prices but they are definitely higher than what they announced after making the 35 % cut.
Since Uber decided to jack up their prices to satisfy their partners, you might be curious what other taxi hailing services are offering. The taxi hailing services in question apart from Uber are Little Cabs, Taxify, Mondo Ride and Mara Moja. I also concentrated on the basic prices you can get for each service.
| TAXI HAILING SERVICE | BASE FARE | PRICE/KM | PRICE/MINUTE | MINIMUM FARE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uber | 100 | 42 | 3 | 300 |
| Taxify | 75 | 26 | 2.3 | N/A |
| Little Cabs (Basic) | 100 | 30 | 4 | 190 |
| MondoRide (Budget) | 100 | 30 | 3 | 200 |
| MaraMoja | N/A | 65 | N/A | 250 |
As you can see from the table, the pricing looks familiar at first glance. Uber, Little Cabs and Mondo Ride have a similar price structure that has a base fare, price per kilometer, price per minute and a minimum fare regardless how short the trip is. We have outliers too, like Taxify who only offer a price per kilometer and price per minute fee and Mara Moja who charge the highest price per kilometer.
I decided to go further and check out the fare estimate for a ride from my location to work and the resulting fare estimates were not surprising at all.
The journey is 23 kilometers and the EAT (estimated time of arrival) was around 78 minutes. The cheapest alternative by far is Taxify which gave me a maximum fare of KES 880 and the most expensive alternative was Mara Moja with KES 1450. The other apps gave me a maximum price estimate of KES 1300 (Uber), KES 1060 (Little Cabs) and KES 1090 (Mondo Ride). The prices were also in range with what I had estimated manually from to their fare pricing information.
I hope this will help in determining which is the better taxi hailing platform for your needs.
*Correction*
Taxify’s rates have been corrected to reflect the rates they show on the app.
