Purpose

Building an on transportation on demand network is extremely challenging, as supply of drivers and demand of customers are often not in balance. This means that customers can be disappointed, as they cannot be paired with an available driver, and drivers can be disappointed, as they may be missing non-SafeMotos business to wait for SafeMotos trips, yet none come in.

A payment guarantee is a way to resolve this ‘chicken or the egg’ conundrum. What it does is guarantee a supply of drivers so customers are not disappointed. These drivers are guaranteed because they are paid a set amount to take into account potential low activity timeframes and stick with the SafeMotos platform instead of performing non SafeMotos trips.

Usage

The system will be effective different cohorts of drivers in different ways, with the goal that guarantees are a carrot in front of drivers they are always motivated to reach, but the company uses business intelligence so that drivers very rarely get their ‘theoretical goal’ of getting something for doing nothing.

This would mean that some drivers will be on full time guarantees, some drivers will be at peak hours / low acceptance rate hours, some drivers will be positioned in certain geographies and some drivers will be ‘on call’ for when there are new dips in acceptance rate.

While eventually supply side movement would be expected to be automated, in the beginning it is expected to be manually measured from business intelligence dashboards and driver criteria physically set.

From a budgeting perspective, the system assumes that a certain percentage of trips will go towards driver pricing guarantees, a higher proportion close to launch then decreasing over time.

System Mechanics

Driver Visual Messaging

The drivers should clearly understand their goals, commitments and expectations from the payment guarantee. One proposal would be to base a new screen off of the driver finances page from the SafeMotos Driver App.

What needs to be communicated is:

• Money that will be received (would be great to show what total amount is, then having money increasing over time making drivers feel ownership over money they’ve worked towards) 
  • Take home pay 
  • Fuel subsidy for amount driven
  • Bonus (eg working late shift, working holiday, making incentives)
• Time commitment (YOU ARE ON DUTY, YOU ARE NOT ON DUTY), (I QUIT AND CAN’T GET ANOTHER GUARANTEE FOR THREE DAYS)
• Driver acceptance rate / fulfillment rate (goal vs reality)
• Inside / outside of geo location (direct them to where they want to go, can be like an automatic trip) 
• Warning clock countdown (If you don’t do X you will not get the guarantee)

SafeMotos Driver Guarantee Dashboard

Variable Selections

Drivers should be able to be grouped together in cohorts for shared rules settings

The following variables should be included:

• Money guarantee (may be an output coming from other criteria)(take home pay)
• Amount of money per kilometer of trip actually taken (fuel subsidy)
• Scheduling matrix: select days of week and hour blocks. (should allow for peak  off peak selection, like booking blocks on an online weekly schedule)
• Geo fence location (maybe radius of pin? Commune too touch to select?)
• Target acceptance rate

Business Intelligence

Dashboard: High level (overall, or by cohort)

• Total number of trips taken while drivers working under guarantees
• Acceptance Rate 
• Fulfillment rate
• Customer satisfaction
  • All trips
  • Guarantee driver trips
• Driver satisfaction
  • All trips
  • Guarantee driver trips
• Amount paid out to drivers vs total bookings
  • All trips
  • Guarantee driver trips
• % of money that was for guarantees
  • All trips
  • Guarantee driver trips

Dashboard: Demand Maps / Timelines

There should be a heat map of Kinshasa over areas of acceptance rate that can be played out at a per hour level over a 24 hour period, allowing management to position supply side of drivers.

There could be a predictive area of this too listing the top 10 areas (at a specific hour) for:

• Lowest acceptance rate
• Most money paid out to drivers

Dashboard: Per Driver Metrics

There should be a high level ranking of all drivers on payment guarantees with there being thresholds for all numbers, if driver outside a threshold should be able to be exported for follow up.

• Driver name
• Driver trips performed over time
• Acceptance rate
• Fulfillment rate
• Request nume
• Customer satisfaction rate
• ETA miss pickup

Dashboard: Counter Fraud

This dashboard can be refined with additional variables over time with individual drivers being added to the list (with system description of why issued) to be either investigated or cleared.

Initial reasons could be:

• Driver receiving multiple requests from same other user account / IMEI
• Low driver fulfillment rate
• Long average trip length
• Low average trip length

Needed Research

• How do drivers respond to various incentives
• What is most effective variables to influence driver behavior
• More (help!)

Appendix: General Pricing Guarantee For Driver Payment 

In interviews with taxi cab drivers (note not motorcycles) it was identified the challenges drivers have with the unpredictability of their earnings. For example, on days when there are protests or rains drivers families may go hungry as there is no work demand.

Drivers indicated that they would take less profit if it would relate to more stable payment expectations.

Potentially some drivers could be permanently on the payment guarantee at a per day / week / month level, and this would no longer be about fringe demand elements but a permanent way for either all drivers or a subset of drivers to be paid, as well as increasing driver retention / loyalty / value.