Plenty Waka, a bus-hailing service based in Lagos. has updated its app to fix some glitches that have hindered the growth of the company for some time now. The PlentyWaka application has been updated to 2.0 which is a better version.
“Plentywaka is a bus sharing solution that offers commuters convenience, safety and comfort in their daily rides. Providing convenient and effective driving experience one route at a time.”
Earlier in the year, CrowdyVest Holdings (CV Holdings) kicked off the pilot phase of the ride sharing service. Jonny Enagwolor, the managing director, and cofounder of the company said that their focus is on the island part of Lagos right now, but hope to expand to other areas soon.
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“We are currently on the pilot run with 25 buses and we hope to go full scale soon,” he said.
How it works
Passengers need to download the Plentywaka mobile application, book a bus going their way, make a card payment and wait at the designated bus stop. A verification code to enable identification of the bus is then sent to the rider. When the bus gets to the designated bus stop, an assistant checks the booking details of the rider to ascertain a match, and then the rider gets on board.
Plentywaka also has a plan to make their drivers owners of their buses after a period of three years of driving with the company.
In the outset, the app posed a challenge to commuters who were excitedly embracing the ride-sharing platform. The company said the new app has been updated to fix the challenges.
Before now, it’s difficult to book for more than one rider, but the new app offers room for multiple bookings. Also, ride-payment can only be deducted at the completion of the trip, unlike before, when it was impossible for trips to be cancelled without a rider being charged. Passengers complained that they were being charged even when the service was not rendered.
Another new feature of the app is the barcode. The old style of manually checking the passengers’ details has been overridden by the barcode, enabling swifter services. The bus assistant will only have to scan a rider’s barcode to access his/her details at the start and end of the trip.
There is also the introduction of waka-purse, a Plentywaka wallet that gives riders the choice of not using their card information on the system. All they need to do is fund the wallet with as low as N1000, though there is no limit to how much a rider can fund his wallet with.
The waka-purse also came with a sharing feature. Afolabi Oluseyi, vice president, operations said: “You can also transfer funds from your waka purse to someone else’s. These features are coming live today and they are all geared towards improving user experience.”
Plentywaka is also exploring a lease idea to make up for its narrow operations. Since it was launched, its routes have remained Ajah-Abraham Adesanya, and few other routes in the island, a situation enabled by insufficient buses. In a bid to expand its services and cover other routes in Lagos, the Bus sharing company has introduced PlentyWaka Vehicle Partnership Scheme. The goal is to allow interested investors to register buses with the company and earn Return on Investment.
Enagwolor explained how the partnership scheme works: “When you bring a bus to the system, you’re guaranteed of revenue generation between 500 and 800,000 every month. From the revenue, PlentyWaka gets 30% and our partner gets 70%.
“There is also a finance leasing option for interested partners who can’t bear the cost of a full bus. With this option, a partner only needs equity of 30% and a partner finance company would provide the rest.
“From the revenue generated from this too, PlentyWaka will take 30%. The remaining 70% will be shared 70/30 again with 70% going to the finance leasing company,” he said.
PlentyWaka hopes to add 100 more buses to its fleet using this scheme by February 2020.
Apart from easy of movement, empowerment and of course the business aspect of it, the company’s other goal is to use their platform to decongest Lagos by taking at least 35% of passenger vehicles off the roads.
However, there is skepticism about its chances to dominate in bus sharing community, considering competition and other logistics that have worked against the progress of other bus sharing companies like OPay’s OBus.