By Seleoe Nonyane
Twenty-year old Liteboho Leonard Lethole is hoping to transform the transport industry in the country with his newly launched online cab service last week called PickMeUp Lesotho Lesotho Pty (Ltd).
PickMeUp Lesotho is a mobile application which clients can use to order cabs.
PickMeUp is integrated with a software called “What3words” – a mapping system which divides the world into three by three metre square boxes.
There’s 57 trillion of those squares across the world and each square is named with a unique sequence of three random words from the dictionary.
Lethole says the What3words application will come in handy for locations and residents without addresses because this type of business model needs street addresses in order to be able to get from point A to point B.
“Residents that live in unaddressed parts of Maseru can use the What3words application to find the exact home addresses by simply opening and zooming into the exact spot of their residence.
“They can select one square which will be their new home address. That means they can use What3words as their drop-off locations”, he said.
He said when a client opens the application they will be presented with “order now” button and once the customer types on it the application will automatically know the exact location of the client, which is point A. For point B, which is the intended destination, the client will also tap to fill in their drop-off point.
In terms of payment method, customers can pay in cash, as well as the In-App-wallet which is an account where customers are able to put in a certain amount into their wallet, and it will just take them from there every time they use the PickMeUp application.
“We have our own coupons that a customer can deposit into the App; once you are finished with your pick-up location or drop-off location the App will identify the nearest driver within the zone.
“We have split Maseru into zones in order to optimize our pick-up times. For me as a person, the issue I have experienced was that when I called a cab the driver would tell me they are on the other side of town; this is very inconvenient when I have to be somewhere at a certain time.
“So, what we have done is that we have split Maseru into zones and customers will get cars which are at least 15 minutes from where they are at a particular time.”
Lethole reiterated that he was motivated to start the business as a way of solving a personal issue of perpetually waiting too long for a cab he needed one, partly because the industry is not regulated. This is evidence in the fact that cabs do not even charge a uniform fare. PickMeUp will address that problem of clients being overcharged by drivers, as prices will be regulated.
“It wasn’t fair because customers were being fleeced. In the same vein drivers were also being cheated. This application will promote fairness.”
The application is available on the Google play store as well as the Apple AppStore.
