The Federal Government on Friday moved to significantly lower the cost of fare charged by E-hailing taxis with a 50 percent conversion discount to Compressed Natural Gas, CNG.
Programme Director/CEO, Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, PCNGI, Engr Michael Oluwagbemi stated this on Friday while appearing on Arise TV program, He highlighted the significance of the e-hailing taxi service in the economy, disclosing that in 2020, the sector generated $290 million in revenues with seven million people using the service.
We’ve Activated Conversion Centers In Seven States Lagos,FCT, Oyo, Nasarawa, Niger Kaduna and Ogun State. We expect before the end of the year we should be in fifteen States.We are expanding our footprint every day . We have over 50 conversion center sign up under the Conversion Incentive Program ( CIP) we are so building capacity by training the technicians we are working with Ministry of Labor and Transportation ministry in that regards .
Oluwagbemi said: “Indeed, we know that transportation is responsible for about 14% to 15% of an average family’s spending. It contributes about 1.5% to the overall economy, with an average of 5.1% growth on a year-to-year basis
He pointed out that in Nigeria the vehicle-to-population ratio is about 60 vehicles to 1,000 people “with 41.1% of the about 12 million vehicles in Nigeria are privately owned, with vehicle ownership concentrated in our urban areas.
This means that the real opportunity for moving people around in an environment where there is no vehicle ownership is this ride-share technology that has become available across the land in the last 10 years. The global ride-hailing market is valued at about $130 billion as of 2020, and is anticipated to reach a value of $230 billion by 2026, registering about 8.75% growth between 2021 and 2026.
In 2020, revenues generated in Africa alone from the ride-share industry was about $2.5 billion, with Nigeria accounting for about $292 billion of that, and also accounting for 15% of the 48.6 million people that use ride-shares.
“This is quite significant. That means Nigeria accounts for about 7 million people using ride-share that used ride-share in 2020. Our young people in our cities, from Lagos to Ibadan, to Ilorin to Ado Ekiti, to Lokoja, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Uyo, Ife Port Harcourt, Aba, Onitsha, all the way to Benin City, to Maiduguri, all utilize ride-share services
Oluwagbemi explained that the use of CNG would reduce cost of fueling for the cab drivers by about 70 percent, significantly lower their cost of operation and fare price for passengers.