Vaya has accelerated the introduction of its new services Vaya Carpool and Vaya Shuttle in a bid to help alleviate the fuel crisis in Zimbabwe.
Mrs Dorothy Zimuto, the CEO of the Vaya businesses at Cassava Smartech, said the two Vaya services will help reduce the number of cars on the roads by making it easier for people to share vehicles.
Vaya Carpool is a car-sharing service that will cost half the price of a normal Vaya Premium service. Its computer is able to identify up to two other passengers within a 500-meter radius. It does not allow more than three adults per car. Cars can be scheduled through company accounts, making it easier for businesses to pay for their senior staff.
Mrs Zimuto said the Vaya Corporate Shuttle is aimed at general company staff.
“The minibuses and kombis used in the Vaya Shuttle service have been carefully selected for road worthiness and will have on-board Wi-Fi,” she said. To ensure drivers are polite to passengers and drive carefully, she said Vaya would have a rating system and bad behaviour will lead to the driver being suspended from the platform.
It has been proven around the world that services like Vaya Carpool and Vaya Shuttle service can encourage people to leave their own cars at home and use them only for weekends. With more people sharing vehicles, the impact will be huge for Zimbabwe as it will reduce fuel consumption and save foreign currency.
Another service set to reduce fuel costs and reduce cars on the roads is the planned launch of Vaya School Shuttle, which Cassava recently announced that it was already being piloted to pick and drop the children of the Econet group’s staff members.
“It is clear that a lot of cars we see on the roads are ferrying children to school. If we can have the kids picked up by a shuttle service and brought back safely, more cars will be parked at home. This is what Vaya is trying to achieve,” said Mrs Zimuto.
“It is not hard to see that parents can travel to work on either Vaya Carpool or Shuttle, while children are taken directly to school by Vaya School Shuttle. There will be fewer cars on the roads during the term. The benefits to the economy are a reduction in cars on the roads and that means less fuel used, and less foreign currency spent on importing fuel. It is great for the economy,” Mrs Zimuto said.
Meanwhile, Vaya senior management has been engaging fuel suppliers to try and get priority access for active Vaya drivers. There are now more than registered 20 000 Vaya vehicles on the roads in Zimbabwe.
