Old Goods, New Movements
While boda bodas tend to spend most of their time moving people, they also move goods — but the way they move cargo, as it’s called in Kampala, is changing with an influx of delivery apps like Glovo, SafeBoda, and Uber. These new models, which include automatic fare calculation and app-based trust, are expanding possibilities for passengers ordering goods while making questionable changes to drivers’ work practices and pay.
Traditional deliveries
The items delivered by boda bodas can be as small and light as an envelope, or as large and cumbersome as a disassembled bed frame, or as remarkable as another motorcycle.
Traditionally, the cost of delivering a particular item mainly depends on negotiation between the owner of the item and the boda rider but there are determinants of the negotiation. The common determinants include the size and weight of the item, distance, road conditions, weather, time, and relative bargaining power of the passenger and the rider.
A boda rider who is delivering a small item, say a notebook, a phone, or an envelope will not charge the same as the one who is delivering larger ones like a fridge, iron sheets, or a sack of cassava, though the distance, time and all other conditions may be the same.
Sometimes, when the owner of the large item explains that the cargo is a burden, or expresses urgency, a boda rider may use this to his own advantage. So he may charge a high amount.
Delivery of items on bodaboda is made possible by trust between the boda rider and the sender or receiver or both. The rider is paid by either the receiver or the sender. This is normal and easy for boda riders and their neighbors either at the stages or homes.
A new model for deliveries
In the past few years, app-based deliveries have arrived in Kampala, made possible by the artificial trust between the recipient, the sender and the app administrators. The rider receives a notification with minimal trust, since the sender doesn’t know the driver and isn’t sure if the driver will deliver the item intact. However, in the eyes of the app, because the driver agreed to sign up, they assume that he will do the job. So he picks an item from the sender who doesn’t know him and delivers it to the recipient whose face seems to display distrust.
None of the people involved know each other, and they can’t trust strangers — but they trust the app. The payment calculations used in app-based deliveries vary but mainly depend only on two factors — distance and time. This means that all other factors are ignored, including whether you are carrying a letter or whether you are carrying a 50 kg sack of cassava.
SafeBoda, the most popular app for general deliveries, displays information on the passenger interface that the items “must not exceed 15 Kgs and must fit on a motorcycle.” This rule, however, is rather hidden on the passenger interface, and doesn’t feature in the driver app. Additionally, none of the four SafeBoda drivers responding to this article were aware of this limit, though SafeBoda claims it is taught during training. As a result, both drivers and passengers tend to ignore the SafeBoda warnings, and overload with the same sorts of goods — only without compensating drivers for the additional risk. Apps are also made into games, where the riders may earn money from the recipients and also earn points on the app. The points are redeemable into cash and can also be used for online transactions at compatible sites.
Another important difference is that when the app-based boda driver receives a delivery notification, he moves from his location to the pickup location — which can be far, depending on the unknowable algorithm — and then he delivers the cargo to the recipient location. However, he is only paid for travelling from the pickup location to the recipient location. On the other hand, the non-app-based boda driver is usually found close to the pickup location to load the cargo at and carry it directly to the recipient location, as they are often trusted by the sender. This means the negotiable distance tends to be from pickup location to the recipient location, with less fuel wasted in the process of reaching the pickup spot. However, if the non-app-based boda driver is far from the pickup, the additional distance to travel to the pickup can be considered for payment. Since non-app drivers have the chance to bargain they usually earn more than the app-based boda riders who earn according to preset fare calculators — which are set by apps attempting to gain market share with lower prices.
Since app-based boda drivers continually receive online trip requests everywhere around town, some of them prefer to work full-time with the apps despite the low preset fare-calculators. For some apps, the boda driver can receive his pay as soon as the cargo gets to the right destination while on other apps, the riders earn money daily but only receive it at the end of the week.
Martin, a rider working with Glovo, said that since he joined he no longer has to wait for passengers at a boda stage. When Lubyanza asked him about earnings, he said, “It depends on how hard you work through the week. Hard-working riders can even earn three hundred thousand ($85) a week. I can see my daily earnings on the app but I get my money once every week.”
There is a third model for boda boda deliveries, that can be either app-based or non-app-based and is a formal business model. Riders in this category are totally dependent on an employer, who provides motorcycles, accessories, fuel, maintenance, and pays a monthly salary to the riders who use the motorcycles to carry out deliveries. The restaurant chain Café Javas is a prime example — they provide branded motorcycles to their drivers, who are well recognized throughout Kampala. The riders go through a formal recruitment process, including interviews and CV submission — quite different from the other more open ended boda delivery options. A rider working with Café Javas told Lubyanza that he’s paid UGX 300,000 ($85) a month regardless of the number of trips he makes. While this is comparable to what drivers were making in profit pre-lockdown, the riders are unable to drive their motorcycles home — meaning transport costs are an additional expense.
These three models — traditional stage-based drivers, app-based gig drivers, and formally employed drivers — are in flux. App-based and formally employed drivers are more likely to cater to higher-income customers, but formally employed drivers generally only deliver very specific goods, such as food from Café Javas. At the end of the day, however, the relative success of each model depends on drivers’ abilities to choose their work, and the relative attraction of each model. App-based deliveries like Glovo and SafeBoda may be boosted significantly by subsidies from fundraising, but such subsidies cannot last forever, and if they do not prove a more sustainable model, they will leave as surely as Dial Jack.
