3 months ago
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Amber Group has entered Jamaica’s public transport sector through a 50 per cent equity stake in OnTime Taxi, which operates a fleet of about 300 cabs.
Amber CEO Dushyant Savadia declined to comment on the value of the transaction, citing confidentiality agreements. At the same time, Savadia says the partnership aims to transform the market by integrating advanced apps with innovative artificial intelligence features.
Amber, which is a technology company, plans to take aim at the business that the foreign rideshare operators have garnered in Jamaica. A new app for booking of rides, which has been six months in development, will be rolled out over the next 60 days, Savadia said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.
“What we’ve built, over time, is a lot of good technologies in Amber Connect. We’ve been using that to support many taxi companies and car rental companies globally. Now, we’re bringing it to Jamaica,” said the Amber Group CEO, adding that a similar arrangement will go live in Colombia by early September.
He said Amber has developed technologies for AI-enabled automotive dispatch, route management, dashcams to monitor driver behaviour along with trackers that detect bad diving habits.
“There are people from outside who have not been conforming to local regulations as regards to PPV operations and those operators have found themselves at a disadvantage. The question for us was how can we put all this tech in so that we bring discipline, technology and modernization and have our people benefit from that experience,” Savadia said of the move. PPV is short for public passenger vehicles.
All OnTime cabs will be equipped with passenger panic buttons at the front and back of the vehicle. The platform will be backed by Amber Connect’s real-time tracking with AI-enabled route and dispatch management functions. Advanced AI dashcams will also allow for driver behaviour monitoring, promotion of safer driving habits, and help reduce the likelihood of accidents, thereby lowering insurance premiums for operators, Savadia said.
The panic button feature with private armed response will be a game changer for the Jamaican market, he asserted.
“We saw the perfect gap in the market where local operators are not able to compete technologically, and make it convenient, and foreign operators like InDrive and Uber cannot offer the level of security for Jamaicans,” the Amber CEO said.
The OnTime Taxi Service will be rebranded to Amber/OnTime. This will be aligned with the upcoming app that can be downloaded by passengers to request service. The functionalities of the app will be expanded to include features such as a rewards programme, a courier service and food delivery.
“We’ll be fitting all the taxis with the background tech and upgrade OnTime’s operations with all of the AI dispatch management. This will deliver to passengers everything in a single app and become the first localised app for everything that you want to be moved to you,” Savadia said.
In a release, OnTime Taxi CEO Phillip Fearon said the partnership will be seeking to leverage the brand strengths of both Amber and OnTime to deliver new dynamism to the public passenger market in Jamaica.
“Together, we’re poised to disrupt the industry and deliver unparalleled service to our passengers and enhance safety levels like never before,” Fearon said.
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