By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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The country’s transport business continues to experience disruptions with the entry of new players, including electric cars and motorcycles for ride-hailing services as well as the adoption of automated payments, among others.

JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE spoke to Director-General of Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority about some of the issues dominating the sector.

Below are excerpts

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You allowed Volkswagen to implement a lower tariff than the rest. How do you explain the difference and isn’t unfair?

The current taxi tariffs set by RURA consist of a minimum of Rwf500 per kilometre and maximum Rwf778 per kilometre. The Yego taxi tariff structure is fixed at Rwf1,500 for the first kilometer and all subsequent kilometres at Rwf700 each, and Rwf500 for each kilometre beyond 30 kilometres.

So the Yego tariff is purely based on distance while the VW tariff structure is a combination of both distance and time, meaning a charge per distance plus a cost per minute of driving. VW charges Rwf610 for the first kilometre and Rwf45 per minute, then subsequent kilometres are charged Rwf600 each.

The difference is based on a partnership between VW and the government which seeks to bring new mobility solutions to the country such as the introduction of electric vehicles. We accommodated them with that thinking in mind.

We did not see a good reason why to force them to give up their current algorithm and software for a model of charging per distance.

Yego taxi operators complain that the difference is causing unfair competition. What do you say to that?

Quite frankly, I don’t believe that the main reason why clients would take VW than Yego has to do with tariffs. About 70 per cent of the time you have higher tariffs on VW than Yego cabs and 30 per cent of the time it is for short distances.

If there is traffic on the road VW actually charges much more. We carried out comparison on the two  services before we even determined the tariff.

Their complaint is based on clients who pick VW over Yego cabs because they are new vehicles, while most of Yego’s fleet is 15-20 years old. Also, across the city we only have about 80 to 100 VW vehicles while there are 1,000 Yego cabs.

What is the future for the old fleet of taxis?

We have held discussions with the owners of these old fleet and we looked at how to replace their old cars. We encouraged them to have a discussion with Yego Innovision Ltd, who have gone as far as engaging different car manufacturers, supplier and car models to try and find a solution.

It is inevitable that in the future all these old fleet will have to be replaced.

There are plans to get all moto riders to shift to electric motorcycles, how will the transition work?
The plan is for new motos being added to the fleet to be electric motorcycles. For the ones that are already on the road, we have to allow them to operate for a certain period but they will get phased out gradually.

What is the timeline on this transition?
We are working on the transition plan and once it is done we will meet with the commercial motorcycles. We will first engage them before making these changes.

With regard to the ongoing tenders for public transport routes, there are concerns that the process has not given interested bidders enough time to engage car makers and banks for loans?

We encouraged them to put all these details in their bids. However, from previous experience, these companies usually contact their suppliers and banks after they submit their bids.