Here in Yola, the Adamawa state capital, we don't have city taxis but we have Keke Napep (Tricycles) which is the first and most reliable means of public movement within the city.
A few years ago (before the mass adoption of Keke Napep after the ban on motorcycles), the only major and cheap means of connecting between Jimeta and Yola town was through the use of shuttle buses.
One major discouraging factor about those buses as I remember today was the nature of their routes. The buses had a straight line route that was usually from Yola market to Jimeta market with a few stops along the road, except if they are otherwise chartered to take passengers to a specific destination.
Today, keke Napep have been massively adopted in Yola and Jimeta that you hardly see the buses plying the road again.
Lessons
- To that extend, I've studied the circumstances between the two systems to arrive at the reasons for keke Napep's massive adoption.Easy movement and navigation - moving around with keke is no longer difficult and straight lined as it used to be with the buses. The drivers are dynamic in nature; they can take you to your doorstep or nearest point without charging you extra.
- Cross ventilation - like the buses, the Keke Naped do not have air con but they give room for cross ventilation for their passengers especially in a sunshine city like Yola where the temperature approaches hell on a sad day.
- Cost - there is no price difference from boarding keke or bus, rather, the keke is cheaper in most cases.
- Accessibility - before Gov Bindow's mass road construction and rehabilitation, roads in Yola were mostly occupied by potholes that were bigger than the size of the keke's tyres. Today, we have good access roads where these guys move quite fast.
Conclusion
If you're a business owner, a manager, a principal or proprietor and you're yet to embrace change and adopt modern technology in your venture, then, you are sending yourself out of business already.
Having a good product without satisfying and retaining your customers equals nothing more than failure.
This is what my team and I are doing for small and big businesses in our communities; building their brands and re-positioning them for the modern world by cutting down their expenses and increasing profit.
Hit me up for your digital and media projects now.
I earlier shared this post on my Facebook here