A group of young entrepreneurs in Lahore, Pakistan has launched an Uber-like rickshaw-hailing app that is quickly gaining popularity in the country's congested second-largest city.
In Lahore, where private taxis are expensive and public transport is often overcrowded, rickshaws (known as "tuk-tuks" in SA) are the only convenient form of transport, says Shahmir Khan, CEO of Travly, the company behind the app.
An estimated 500 000 rickshaws serve the roughly seven million people populating the city.
While the small, three-wheeled vehicles are cheap to run and navigate gridlock more easily than larger cars and buses, many commuters struggle to find a rickshaw late at night or in the early hours of the morning.
Furthermore, Travly's research found that while over 30% of rickshaw drivers were smartphone-empowered, using smartphone apps such as WhatsApp and Viber to communicate with customers, the majority of rickshaw drivers were wasting much of their time searching for customers and navigating rates, according to Khan.
Thus Travly's Uber-like rickshaw-hailing service was set into motion. A pilot version of the service debuted last week in two upscale neighbourhoods in Lahore, and has received "mammoth" responses so far, says 25-year-old Khan.
"We're overwhelmed with requests," Tech In Asia quoted Khan. "Some customers are requesting rides at 2am or 3am, and we're catering to them around the clock."
To date, around 70 rickshaw drivers have signed up with Travly.
Travly plans to extend its service to the rest of Lahore, and subsequently to Karachi and Islamabad, Pakistan's largest city and capital city respectively.
The start-up also plans to unveil taxi-hailing, bus trip-planning and logistics solutions in the near future.
In addition, the company is working to add more automation to the service, which currently takes cash only and relies on back-end customer support staff to relay the user's request to the closest available rickshaw.
No smartphone needed
Travly users do not need a smartphone equipped with Travly's Android app to access the service. Users can also hail a rickshaw using Travly's Web site, or by phoning a local number.
Yet Travly is not the first company to offer Pakistan's rickshaw commuters an Uber-like experience without a smartphone.
In early 2014, microjobbing platform Oddjobber grabbed attention by allowing rickshaw users to connect with available drivers through its simplistic feature phone app.
Rickshaw revolution?
Nor is Travly the first tech company to hone in on rickshaws. In early 2015, Uber itself initiated a rickshaw-hailing service in Delhi, India, competing with Ola, India's largest online cab-hailing company, which had already begun allowing users to hail a rickshaw.
Praised for their low fuel consumption and manoeuvrable size, rickshaws have long been an alternative transport option in London.
In September, Sherazam Tiwana, a student from Pakistan at England's Coventry University, showed off a streamlined rickshaw design for his final-year automotive design project, pushing the design as a solution to London's congestion issues.
Tiwana's slickly redesigned rickshaw (called a "pedicab" by London locals) concept is electric-powered and accepts payment via London's Oyster travel cards.
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