WHILE Uber has been reluctant to push west of the Great Dividing Range, one Uralla-based entrepreneur has a vision to create a ride-sharing service specifically for regional NSW.
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Spurred on by his own experiences with catching a taxi between regional cities, Duncan Fisher has been working on his own ride-sharing start-up, Roober.
“I’ve found through work and through personal experiences, in the taxi world prices go through the roof when you’re going outside the town boundary,” Mr Fisher said.
“So if you’re going from Armidale to Uralla, you don’t just pay the fare there, you pay the round trip price.
“A big part of ride sharing is mostly people going around town, but there are also a lot of people in the community going between regional centres everyday – I drive from Uralla to Tamworth for work everyday. That’s a market I want to tap into.”
To begin with, Mr Fisher wants to trial Roober in the Tamworth, Armidale and Inverell triangle.
“If someone drives from Armidale to Tamworth everyday and they pick up a passenger through Roober on one of those days, they can probably cover their fuel for the week, while the passenger can get to where they need to go for a reasonable price,” he said.
“It’s a win-win situation. Will it be a viable full-time job? Maybe, I don’t know yet, but there is certainly the ability to make some money.”
All transactions would be done electronically when the journey is booked, and passengers will have the ability to rate drivers.
“We’re aiming to be cheaper than a taxi and we won’t be doing surge pricing in times of high demand like Uber,” Mr Fisher said.
Mr Fisher said all the “preliminary business functions” were ready to go and he’s now looking for either an investor or technical co-founded to create the app, along with people willing to put their hand up to be drivers.
For more information go to roober.com.au.