Take a HIKE

Four countries and five unique skill sets have come together to create HIKE Transportation Technologies, a new transport company that not only features a ride share app like their competitors, but exclusively uses ‘H’ drivers, or taxis licensed specifically for that purpose.

The management team, which confasists of talents drawn from the worlds of actuarial science, IT and technology, operations and project management, marketing and customer relations, sat with Business Day to explain the HIKE concept, which extends beyond the traditional for profit model.

“HIKE is a for profit company which will fund non-profit ventures and try to tackle issues happening within the community.

That is the foundation,” said Matthew Duke, President and CEO. Duke left his job to start HIKE, and along with Deon Caesar, Chief Operating Officer and Jay Argawal, Chief Information Officer, funded the start up from their own pockets.

They, and the other members of the executive team, Charmaine Peart, Director, Digital and Philanthropic Strategies and Ayanna Caesar, Director, Marketing and PR, take turns in elaborating the concept, which they hope will change an industry and by extension, make TT a better place.

Peart explained that the company has three arms.

“One arm of the company is HIKE with a Purpose and that is our philanthropic arm. This is where we make strategic partnership with companies, with governments and our goal is to transform situations and industries,” she said.

“Then you have Take a HIKE, where our focus is our ride share app and helping people get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. But, we don’t want to be a one trick pony that only has an app. We also have a consulting service arm. This is how we would help here in Trinidad and hopefully, all over the region and the world.” The concept, as they outline it, will see each arm feeding into the other.

“There were conversations with taxi associations, the ministry of works, different arms of the government, because our goals are to work with the government and not around the government,” said Peart, referring HIKE’s exclusive use of ‘H’ licensed cars.

HIKE plans to use the data gathered from its operation of the transport service to inform the consultancy end of its business.

For example, Caesar, revealed plans to sign up for a taxi badge as the company’s COO, to get a sense of how lengthy the process was, ultimately, to advise government on ways they could improve it, particularly after listening to complaints by legally licensed drivers about their ‘PH’ counterparts.

Duke is not entirely convinced that these issues with ‘PH’ drivers are entirely unsolvable.

“People say PH taxis exist because there are not enough H taxis. I am not sure how true this is,” he said.

“I think we need to see what happens when we take the H taxis, which are just sitting in one place and make them available all across Trinidad and Tobago. If we can say there is a shortage after doing that, then we can take a look at the process.” He also does not think ride shares like Uber are the best solutions for places like TT.

“Uber’s model makes sense for launching in other countries. Here, even though you have to pay a little more for insurance and the H plate, in the US, you have to physically install a metre system that can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000. Therefore, it’s cheaper to work for someone else and it makes sense in the States.” Ayanna Caesar added: “Ideally, with this solution, in the long run, we can now take information back to the government and let them know there are this many H taxis.” “We know PH is a big thing here, but let us try to make more of those PH, H.” Unlike its competitors, HIKE plans to make their service available across TT from inception.

According to the executive team, their focus at this point is optimising the availability of the service at this point and not necessarily profits. They all see providing access to safe, legal transport, particularly to vulnerable groups such as women working late as a service to the community.

“We believe that if you are in business, you should be doing something to give back to the community you are operating in and if you are not, you should really think about whether you should be in business,” said Caesar.

HIKE’s rates for transport services are aligned to those of the various taxi associations.

The company is launching its ride share app on June 5, where it will be available free of charge to the public.

The company’s formal launch takes place on June 30.