The move by the government to digitize motorbike taxi services has stirred mixed feelings with users saying the regulator ought to revise the transport fare which spiked with the implementation of the new system.

Earlier this month, Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Authority (RURA) announced that more than 21,000 taxi-moto operators in Kigali had adopted the taximeter technology as part of the plan to digitize the sector.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled metres rolled out by local tech firms AC Group, Pascal Technologies and Yego Innovision, allow taxi-moto operators to accept digital payments.

Less than a month down the road, however, passengers and taxi-moto operators in the City of Kigali have expressed concerns about what some call unfair pricing that has come with the new technology.

Adrien Maniraguha, a motorcyclist, says the new metre technology is taking away customers who believe the system has increased the fare for passengers especially on longer distances.

A police officer inspects a taxi-moto rider in Kigali. Photo: Craish Bahizi.

"If I take a passenger on a trip that previously cost Rwf1000 and the metre counts Rwf1500, it makes you look like you are fleecing them. Even when they give it to you, they will not come back the following day,” he explained.

Annette Cyatengwa, a passenger who has been riding metred taxi-motos, says the system has brought dramatic increase in prices, which people like her think make it unfair.

"One would previously pay Rwf500 for a trip from Good Year in Remera to Gikondo, but today the same trip doesn’t go below Rwf800. That is a huge increase,” she said.

RURA explains

RURA officials, however, say most of the concerns are misinformed and contradictory.

Patrick Nyirishema, the Director General of RURA told The New Times that the fact that some passengers only complain about fares on longer distances and not shorter distances is a contradiction.

Currently, the metre charges Rwf300 for the first two kilometres and Rwf133 for every extra kilometer travelled.

"The passenger has not complained about shorter distances yet you are charging the same amount of money per kilometre. If it was expensive, it would also charge high on shorter distances,” he noted.

That, he added, shows how problematic the negotiated fares have been.

Before rolling out the system, the regulator said it conducted extensive studies for more than eight months which involved 700 motorbike operators across the city to draw a comparison between negotiated fares and the ones generated by the metre system.

On one trip, for instance, one person would pay Rwf1000, another person would pay Rwf1300, while another one would pay Rwf1600 depending on how they all negotiate.

"There were 700 moto guys who had metres installed, so we would track them but without using them to determine the tariff,” Nyirishema explained.

Patrick Nyirishema, the Director General of RURA, during a past news briefing. Photo: File.

"Based on the distance, we could see what the metre would charge, and we would ask the moto guys how much they would charge on the same distance,” he added.

According to the RURA boss, the pattern was very clear; short distances generally were within the range they had calculated, but on longer distances, 98 per cent of the time the metre would calculate more than what the negotiated price is.

"The reason is, and we spoke to the motorcyclists themselves, each time you reach Rwf1000, psychologically in the mind of the operator is perceived as a lot of money,” he argued.

Nyirishema said motorcycle operators have not been getting the value for the services they offer, and that they were losing a lot of money especially on longer distances.

"For example, on average when you move 8 kilometres, they charge you Rwf1,000, which by the way is very close to what the metre charges. You can now travel 10, 12, 13 or 14 kilometres and they only add Rwf200,” he noted.

Yet a distance half that would be charged at Rwf1000. The problem for those who were able to negotiate before is that the price is now fixed per kilometer, according to Nyirishema.

"It is a problem of an informal sector that we are trying to make formal. People don’t like the idea of losing the power to negotiate, but they don’t mind squeezing the moto guys,” he said.