Tuverl

In most African countries, Public Transport is an industry that is run by private companies; millions of small to medium enterprises that are Public Transport Operators. These Public Transport Operators, with a small fleet of vehicles between 1 to 10, hire drivers to drive around cities with no timetables and schedules. This makes Public Transport very unreliable to commuters, who are often late to work or school as a result. 

 Tuverl is an app that seeks to make Public Transport cheaper and more accessible to millions of commuters across Africa by helping Public Transport Operators optimize their routes, reduce operational costs and increase revenue. Tuverl seeks to promote smart, resilient and sustainable Cities and Communities by improving Urban mobility and public transportation. Tuverl leverages Data Analytics, Geolocation, Fintech, and Machine Learning to improve Public Transport and fundamentally change how commuters in African countries pay for it, starting with Zimbabwe

In most African countries, Public Transport is an industry that is run by private companies; millions of small to medium enterprises that are Public Transport Operators. These Public Transport Operators hire drivers to drive around cities with no timetables or schedules. This makes Public Transport very unreliable to commuters, who are often late to work or school as a result. Drivers waste time, fuel, and man hours trying to locate commuters along their designated routes or park in one place waiting for commuters to find them.

Commuters struggle with locating Buses and Minibuses as they are often piled up at “Taxi” Ranks or docked at inconvenient locations. On boarding Public Transport, commuters often experience delays as drivers search for passengers to fill up the vehicle

The industry exclusively accepts cash, as the only acceptable form of payment. This coupled with a lack of a mechanism to monitor the number of trips and commuters Public Transport Drivers pick up in day, creates an industry that is fraught with embezzlement, and a lack of accountability. As such Public Transport Operators lose money.

Tuverl leverages Cloud Computing, Data Analytics, Geolocation, FinTech, and Machine Learning to improve and optimize Public Transport and fundamentally change how commuters in African countries pay for it, starting with Zimbabwe.

We have 2 Mobile Applications, a Commuter App for commuters and an Operator App for Public Transport Operators.

Using the Tuverl App, Commuters can live track intracity buses and minibuses, book intercity trips on buses, hail a Taxi on demand and pay for their Public Transportation using local fintech. Commuters can rate and review their trips helping in creating a transparent industry that fosters quality customer service.

We incentivize Operators to maximize the dollar revenue they collect per unit gallon of fuel they use, by offering them a tool that helps them increase the number of commuters per trip and the number of trips per day.

The Tuverl Operator App empowers Drivers and Operators with tools to broadcast the live locations of their vehicles, manage their fleets, and process fares digitally. This helps these two stakeholders to increase the number of commuters per trip, increase the number of trips per day and reduce usage of resources like fuel and man hours that are wasted by randomly searching for commuters. 

The public transport inefficiency in Africa affects over 100 million daily commuters and 13 million operators across the continent. Tuverl is piloting in Zimbabwe where, once we are in full operation, we will impact 6 million daily public transport commuters and 68 000 Public Transport Operators with a fleet over 150 000 vehicles.

Public Transport Operators are the owners of small to medium enterprises with a small fleet of vehicles ranging from 1-10. These vehicles include Minibuses, with a capacity of 16 passenger, and or Buses.

The Public Transport Industry in Africa has a Total Addressable Market of US $65B. We can capture a Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) of roughly US$10B.  The SOM includes our primary Target Market.

We are currently targeting Commuters between the age of 18-24 years, and Operators and Drivers between the ages of 20-34 years. These commuters and operators live in Urban areas, own smartphones, are smartphone literate, use Mobile Banking and generally use social media regularly. This is a demographic that is already accustomed to using mobile money or fintech to pay for goods and services.  They have very little customer behavior to change, if any.

The Public Transport Industry in African countries is an informal sector with millions of small to medium businesses that own Public Transport Vehicles. They are a traditionally under served and have very limited access to capital, networks and technology to help them run their business.

Tuverl aligns with the Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship challenge because Tuverl is a Public Transport App that seeks to help Public Transport Operators reduce operational inefficiencies and increase revenue. This will improve access to Public Transport for millions of commuters in African countries, who are always inconvenienced by this inefficient industry.

Current and exiting solutions in and around African countries, include Uber, Bolt, Vaya, Swvl, WhereIsMyTransport, Hwindi, and ZimTaxi.

These companies mostly offer Taxi or Carpooling services. In Zimbabwe alone, about 80% of all commutes in urban and rural areas are done using Public Transportation that is in the form of Minibuses. While Taxi related apps facilitate connecting rides on Taxis, they do not address the problem of inefficient public Transportation that most Zimbabweans face every day. 

Tuverl is the first app to focus on minibuses. Minibuses are the primary public transport for most low to middle income Africans. Our product caters to the bottom of the pyramid, something that Taxi, and Carpooling services do not do. Existing Taxi apps are often seen as luxurious and fancy apps for tourists, but do not address the entrenched problems that commuters and public transport operators face daily.

Our app is a lot easier to scale across the African as the Public Transport systems from South Africa in Southern Africa to Egypt in Northern Africa are identical.

The above existing solutions are all premised on challenging the status quo and replacing existing Public Transport Operators, with regular drivers who own their own personal vehicles. This has often led to violent classes  between Minibus Drivers and Uber Drivers for example. Tuverl works with existing Public Transport Operators that are licensed businesses. We do not pose a threat to an already vulnerable industry; we seek to uplift and empower Operators to be more profitable.

Tuverl leverages Smartphones, Geolocation, Cloud Computing, Data Science, Fintech and Machine Learning. 

We have 2 mobiles applications, 1 for commuters and 1 for Operators. Our 2 Applications are currently built for the Android Platform (87% of smartphone users use Android Phones in African countries). We plan to add 2 iOS versions by the end of 2020.

The Tuverl Commuter App and Tuverl Operator App connect to the Tuverl Enterprise Application via a REST Api. We build the build the Tuverl Enterprise Application using Spring Boot. The Enterprise Application is running on Amazon Web Services Servers. We are using Amazon Web Services that include Amazon EC2, S3 for file storage, Pinpoint for text messaging notifications, SES for email notifications, CloudFront, SNS, LightSail for our website, Relational Database Services for our Database Storage, SageMaker for Machine Learning to mention but a few. We are also using Google Cloud for services that include Geolocation, Google Maps, and Firebase.

While the technologies we used to build our product already exist and are widely used, we are combining all these to create a Public Transportation product that does not currently exist.  Similar implementations include Uber, Bolt, Vaya, ZimTaxi and Lyft, however most of the product primarily focus on Taxi services and ride hailing. We a have a unique and a completely different business model from the above. We charge Public Transport Operators a commission for every ticket sold on Tuverl and we charge commuters small booking fees.

Tuverl is a product that will work primarily because it uses well adopted existing technology, in a completely different way for the Public Transport Industry in Africa. Users only need smartphones to use the mobile applications. To pay for Public Transport fares or Ticket Commissions commuters and Operators need to have a Mobile Banking Account, Bank Account, Visa or MasterCard, and or PayPal. Examples of Mobile Banking fintech include Ecocash and OneMoney in Zimbabwe, M-Pesa in Kenya, and Orange Money in Botswana.

We are currently operational in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has population of 14.4 Million, 56% live in urban areas. The country has an internet penetration rate of 77%, and over 6.5 Million daily Commuters (before the advent of Covid19). Mobile Banking is a huge hit, with over 10.1 Million Mobile Banking Subscribers. All industries have widely adopted the use of mobile banking payments for good and services. There is a perfect storm of conditions for rapid adoption of our Apps.

Tuverl is a new Public Transport service that has married the use of smartphones, internet penetration and mobile banking to serve an informal Public Transport Industry and millions of commuters who need to travel from one point to another, faster, at lower fares, and with quality customer service.

Inefficient Public Transport significantly wastes productive time for commuters who either must wait long waits at bus stops or take unnecessarily long trips. Losses in valuable productive time for Africans is worth billions of dollars every year. By helping Public Transport optimize their routes, we ensure that commuters do not lose any productive time while commuting.

The Public Transport Industry in African countries is very informal. There is very little government or institutional support from financial institution. Inefficiencies in their industry and how they conduct their business cuts into profit margins, as they do not maximize the number of commuters they pick per trip or the number of trips per day. Providing them tools to run their businesses more efficient can help create good quality jobs for Drivers.

To keep track of our impact on commuters we will measure several metrics such as the change in the average wait times of commuters at bus stops, change in price of public transport trips. We hope to reduce the amount of productive time wasted by commuters, reduce the cost of travelling, and create an environment that fosters quality customer service and safety.

To measure impact for Public Transport Operators, we will keep track of the change in revenue generated,  change in the number of commuters picked per trip and the number of trips per day, change in costs of production and operational costs that include cost of total fuel consumed per unit commuter moved from place to another.  We will also be keeping track of the ratio of mobile money transactions against cash transactions to verify commuter’s payment preferences and the efficacy of digital payments as a means of encouraging transparency and preventing embezzlement and corruption by Drivers and other stakeholders.

We hope to increase the amount of revenue generated per trip and per day, reduce the costs of production and operational costs that include the amount of fuel consumed per unit commuter served.

These impact objectives are consistent with creating good jobs and inclusive entrepreneurship for small to medium enterprises in the Public Transport Sector of African countries. 

Tuverl currently has a Public Beta App that is available on the Google Play Store. We have 30 Public Transport Operators in the city of Bulawayo that are currently participating in our pilot program. They have total fleet of 87 vehicles. We have 253 Commuters on the Commuter App.

In 1 year, we will be serving 60000 commuters and 3500 Operators in Zimbabwe. We are planning to scale from Bulawayo (the second biggest city in Zimbabwe) to Harare, Masvingo, Gweru and all the regions in Zimbabwe.

In 5 years, we hope to be Serving 15 Million Commuters in and around South African and 250 000 Public Transport Operators in the region. We hope to scale to other regions of the continent with a focus on countries that include Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Egypt, the big markets on the continent.

Tuverl aims to transform the way public transport operates in Africa and other emerging markets. In 5 years, we foresee African cities that have fully integrated the Tuverl mobile app. Full integration of Tuverl will improve the efficiency of public transport and how cities operate especially in terms of increased productive time that commuters are currently losing waiting at bus stops for public transport. Tuverl will give people, especially the middle to lower-income Africans, more control over their time and enabling them to better plan.  We hope to impact over 100 Million Commuters across various countries in Africa in the next 10 years.

Equally important, the route optimization Tuverl introduces to drivers means there is significantly less fuel consumed per trip. This has environmental implications as 28.2% of carbon emissions are from vehicles. Creating a more Public Transport efficient system means there will be less emission of toxic pollutant gases and greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Tuverl is therefore central in creating smart cities that provide their citizens with a very reliable and efficient public transport improving productive time and reducing vehicle pollution.

Due to the Covid19 pandemic the Transport industry has grounded to a halt globally. Airlines gave grounded their planes and Public Transport Operators have parked their buses as most countries in African countries and around the world have enforced lockdown measures to curb the spread of Coronavirus. Most Public Transport Operators in the informal sector have been compelled by the current situation to shut their operations or significantly scale down their work. This presents a challenge for Tuverl since is a Transportation service. However, we see this as short to medium term challenge, that will affect our growth numbers in 2020.

The cost of mobile data in most African countries is quite high and some cities have very spotty internet connectivity. We believe this is a general problem we will face as we scale to different cities in different countries in Africa. However, the general prices of data have declined over the past 10 years. Some reports are forecasting that this trend will continue, and mobile data will be accessible to a wider population.

Working with public transport drivers who are allegedly benefiting from the cash only system due to its lack of accountability might be difficult. Drivers have been known to sabotage digital initiatives to increase accountability, as evidenced by the rise and fall of BebaPay, Google owned NFC / Tap and Go Card payment system for Matatus in Kenya. BebaPay colossally failed 2011 when Matatu drivers refused to use the payment system.

We have partnered with Expricos, a Public Transport Union in Bulawayo to help its Public Transport Operators transport and ferry frontline and essential works and any other people that have been allowed to return to work. This will help our company steadily grow its user base during Covid19 pandemic and hopefully position us in a good place to scale up our operations as more restrictions

The general trend has been a significant increase in the number of people using smartphones, and a notable rise in the proliferation of mobile banking solutions. This coupled with a decrease in the cost of 3G and 4G enabled smartphones over the past 10 years has led to an increased use of smartphones and the internet.  To solve the access to internet and mobile data challenge, we are planning on piloting and scaling our product in cities and towns, while Telecoms companies increase their infrastructure in rural areas.

To tackle the potential lack of a buy in from Public Transport Drivers, we are collaborating with Public Transport Operators to develop a commission-based financial incentive that enables drivers to receive a share of the profits if they surpass specific daily revenue targets, a bonus system. We plan to incentivize them to use the app by demonstrating with real numbers that they will generate more revenue from using the app.

Not Applicable

Tuverl has 2 Full time Co-Founders, 1 Part Time Team member and 3 Interns and 4 Advisers.

CEO: Hope Ndhlovu

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hope-ndhlovu/

CTO: Bahlakoana Mabetha

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bahlakoana-mabetha-78286290/

Operations: Tafara Makaza

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tafara-makaza-99529a127/

Board Member and RevRoad Adviser: Joel Beus

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-beus-18299a7/

Adviser: Matt Caywood

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caywood/

Adviser: Diego Caneles

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/diegocanales/

Adviser: Wolf Ruzicka

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wolfruzicka/

Adviser: Helen Manich

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenmanich/

Our team includes interns from George Washington University students that include Juliette Geller (Graphic Design), Elias Ross Trupin (Market Research) and Aravind Gudumala (Software Engineering) a Computer Science Masters Student.  

Our team has a collection of skills, and wealth of knowledge that puts Tuverl in a good position to succeed. Tuverl has two Co-Founders: Hope Ndhlovu and Bahlakoana Mabetha.

Hope Ndhlovu (CEO) holds a B.A. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Harvard University. He grew up in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and is always looking for ways to leverage technology and Data Science to solve challenges faced by people back home. Hope is a full stack Software Developer. He is proficient in programming languages that include Java, JavaScript, SQL, HTML and CSS. He has experience working with Spring Boot, MySQL, Amazon Cloud Services, Microsoft Azure and Android Development.

Bahlakoana Mabetha (CTO), holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Harvard University. He is currently studying a PHD in Power Electronics at Dartmouth University in Hanover, USA. Bahlakoana brings in a set of technical skills that include C, JavaScript, Python, Java, SQL and circuit design. Bahla was born and raised in Lesotho, before receiving a scholarship to study at Harvard University.

We both grew up in Southern Africa. Before receiving a full scholarship to study at Harvard University, Hope Ndhlovu grew up commuting to public high school in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. He was late to school almost every day as a result of an inefficient Public Transport System. Both Co-Founders grew up around inefficient Public Transport. We understand this problem intimately and we have a vested interest in solving challenges.

RevRoad LLC, an Accelerator program from Provo, Utah, is currently playing an advisory role to Tuverl. They are offering us an assortment of services to our company, that include Legal, Finance and Strategy, etc. They are helping us set up our operations in Zimbabwe for a relatively low price.

The Covid19 pandemic has significantly affected all industries globally, and even more so the Transportation sector. Lockdown measures in most African countries, including Zimbabwe have grounded the industry for the last 2 months. However, most economies in African countries are opening up. Frontline workers, essential businesses and more generally formal industries have been recently allowed to return to work in Zimbabwe. We have partnered with Expriccos, a Public Transport Union in Bulawayo to help their Public Transport Operators transport essential staff and people have been allowed to return to work. We are hoping this partnership will help our business grow as more lockdown restrictions are relaxed.

Tuverl has a combination of a B2C and a B2B business model.

On the B2C front, we charge commuters a small booking fee for each ticket they buy using the Tuverl App. The booking fee is 5% of the total ticket fare paid by the commuter.

 On the B2B end of our model, we charge Public Transport Operators for tickets sold on our app. To understand our business model, we have broken down the various pricing models we will use before.

The average cost of an Intercity trip that is roughly 340km long is US$10. Single Buses have 72 seats and make an average of 2 trips a day. At full capacity a single bus makes US$1440 a day. Charging 5% per bus ticket sold on the Tuverl App generates US$72 per bus per day.

The average cost of an Intracity Bus or Minibus trip that is 20km long is US$0.50. A Minibus has an average capacity of 16 seats and makes an average of 15 trips a day. At full capacity a Minibus generates about US$120 a day and $840 a week, for a Public Transport Operator. We will be charging an equivalent of US$0 for weekly subscription per vehicle.

The average price of a Taxi trip is US$5. A Taxi has an average of 30 trips a day. Taxi operators make about US$150 day. Charging 10% per Taxi trip, we will be generating about US$15 of revenue from Taxi Operators per vehicle per day. 

We have so far raised US$31000 in non-dilutive funding from grants and pitch competitions. This funding has enabled our team to work on product development, customer validation and piloting. We plan to continue financing our company in the short term through applying for grants like the Global Innovation Fund and USAID DIV Fund.

Grants and pitch competitions are a short-term method of financing while we are figuring out product market fit.  We hope to raise capital from Angel Funds and Venture Capital starting with a pre-seed round of funding.  We are raising US$150 000 in the form of a convertible note. We are hoping to raise a Series A round of funding in 18 months.

Revenue is the most stable source of financing for our company in the long term. We currently have 30 Public Transport Operators in Bulawayo. As we scale our company so will our revenue. We have a B2C and B2B business model. We charge commuters a booking fee for every ticket they purchase on the Tuverl Commuter App and we charge a Public Transport Operators a commission for very ticket we sell for them on the Tuverl Operator App. We described the revenue model in the “What is your business model?” question.

We are applying to Solve to help scale our product.  We want to tap into MIT and Solve network for potential partnerships and financial support to help us grow our business.

Tuverl is currently piloting its product in Zimbabwe. While we have had relative success the exposure that comes with winning a competition of this magnitude can help us sign up more users, acquire more operators and consolidate a good list of local and international partners as we scale our product. The final prize that comes with winning this competition can help bankroll our customer acquisition.

The Solve community of fellow founders, funders and experts in various fields related to innovation, including the 9-month long program, have been huge incentives for us when we considered applying for this challenge.

Our biggest priority in the next 3 quarters is customer acquisition. In order to increase the number of commuters and operators on our app we need to partner with organizations that help us distribute our product better. These can be partner organizations can include Universities, Local Authorities, National or Federal Governments across African countries, Public Transport Unions and Corporations in the Transportation Space. We are also looking to partner Telecommunications companies to help us distribute our app to their subscriber base.

In order to accelerate our growth in African countries we are looking forward to working with Telecommunications companies, Local Authorities, and Public Transport Unions.

Since we are launching in Zimbabwe, we hope to work with Telecommunications companies like Econet Wireless Zimbabwe (The biggest telecom in Zimbabwe). Econet Wireless can help drive down the cost of mobile data for commuter and Operators, ensuring that they use a very helpful service like Tuverl at no extra cost.

For the Tuverl app to work smoothly we need a lot of data about Public Transport Infrastructure that might be missing on Google Maps. For example, GPS coordinates of bus stops and maps of the various routes with any given city. Local Authorities are important partners in gathering that data. We hope to be working with the Bulawayo City Council to ensure we collect and digitize all the data about bus routes.

Public Transport Operators in the city of Bulawayo are self-organized into lobbying groups that are loosely called Unions. Partnering with Unions will help ease our customer acquisition of Public Transport Operators. We hope to work with Unions like Tshova Mubaiwa, Bulawayo City Transit and Bulawayo Public Transport Association.

The Public Transport Industry in African countries is an informal sector with millions of small to medium businesses that own Public Transport Vehicles. They are a traditionally under served and have very limited access to capital, networks and technology to help them run their business.

Tuverl is good fit for The GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship because Tuverl is a Public Transport App that seeks to help Public Transport Operators reduce operational inefficiencies and increase revenue. This will improve access to Public Transport for millions of commuters in African countries, who are always inconvenienced by this inefficient industry.  Our solution especially focuses on empowering millions Public Transport Operators. Providing Public Transport Operators with technology to help them increase profit margins, improve transparency and accountability for drivers and plug revenue leakages is the first step in creating a sustainable ecosystem for mobility in Africa.

Tuverl leverages Smartphones, Cloud Computing, Data Analytics and Machine Learning to help optimize Public Transport in African countries. Our product depends of data processing of commuter geolocations and addresses, live Public Transport vehicle locations, Public Transport Schedules, Public Transport Operator information, Public Transport Fares and Ticket Information, and user payment information. This massive trove of data is perfect to use for Machine Learning. We are using Machine Learning to help Public Transport Operators better optimize their routes and predict commuter availability. Predicting commuter volumes during the day can help Public Transport Operators increase the number of commuters per trip and the number of trips of day.

Tuverl is a great fit for the AI for Humanity Prize because we are using Artificial Intelligence to solve a very big challenge faced by commuters and Public Transport Operators in African countries. Machine Learning will help us provide more value to our stakeholders.

Public Transport is huge market in Africa, with an estimated Total Addressable Market of US$65B, with over 100 Million daily commuters and 13 Million Public Transport Operators, spread across all the 54 countries in Africa. Challenges faced by different stakeholders in the Public Transport Industry have gone on for too long without being solved. Commuters lose valuable productive time worth billions of dollars every year due to inefficient Public Transport. Public Transport Operators are small to medium enterprises that own a small fleet of vehicles. Tuverl is great fit for The Future Planet Capital Prize because we are solving very big problem in African countries and developing economies in a novel way. While we are a for-profit company, we are particularly focused on the social impact side of our solution. We seek to promote smart and resilient cities and rural areas by strengthening Public Transport and urban mobility.