This Company Has Big Plans For Ride Sharing In The Maritimes
MONCTON – Amer Khaled and Ahmad Hasan are old friends who want to see a more efficient use of vehicles on the roads and more affordable ways for people to move around. They’ve created Gemoo, a ride-sharing platform that also allows the delivery of goods, to serve smaller-sized cities like Moncton.
“The main concept of Gemoo is we are merging the mobility and the delivery side together. Since people sometimes want to share their rides with other people, they can also share their ride with parcels or documents or [food and goods for] delivery,” said Hasan, a software developer and transportation subject matter expert based in Toronto.
“This is exactly where Gemoo has an edge.”
The idea for Gemoo, or Gene Mobility Inc., began in 2016. Hasan’s interest in the business stemmed from his decade-long career in the transportation industry. He specializes in on-demand mobility, dispatching and tracking.
Khaled is a Moncton entrepreneur who saw an opportunity in Hasan’s solution.
“Now, [the utilization rate] for most of the transportation is somehow 50 per cent. That means if 50 KM is driven with people, the other 50 KM is driven while the car is without a passenger,” Hasan explained. “The concept [for Gemoo] started from where we can increase this percentage and make the transportation system more utilized.”
Increasing the utilization of trips that are already happening every day could lead to many benefits, Hasan said.
“In the long term, this will decrease congestion, will decrease also the emission. All these aspects are related to where we can utilize our resources, our assets, as cities, as a company, even as individuals,” he said. “If someone has a car, he can also do deliveries and mobility with the same asset that he already owns.”
With Hasan and his team of five taking care of the technology side in Toronto, Khaled will lead the roll-out of the service in Moncton. That’s where the operational office will be located, with a small customer service centre and eight employees.
Hiring has already started, but Khaled is still looking to fill a few positions.
The pair chose Moncton as the starting point for a few reasons.
“I think Moncton is a good size city to start with and it’s growing. And it’s central too – it’s the hub of Atlantic Canada,” Khaled said. “We’re not going to Toronto or Vancouver yet – but we’re going for cities the size of Moncton or Halifax, Truro, Charlottetown, Saint John, where the service is not there yet.”
We don’t want to compete with existing services – we’re looking at areas that aren’t covered that we need to cover,” Hasan said.
Gemoo is set to begin taking drivers’ applications on August 6 and will have the app ready for consumers to use on Thanksgiving.
Riders, drivers and businesses can create an account using the web or app version of the platform, which will be available for Apple and Android devices.
The company will ask those who register as drivers to provide criminal record and driver record checks. A background check will also be conducted by the company once the driver is in its system.
Drivers will be paid on a ratio-based compensation system. The prices are based on the kilometres driven and travel time, among others.
“This is really where we’ll have a difference. We’ll have a transparent pricing structure,” Hasan said. “So based on the time [drivers] will drive, they will be compensated and they’ll know their compensation based on each ride they will accept.”
The drivers don’t have to be full-time workers of Gemoo, neither would they need to use the company’s car. A person driving to work can pick up a passenger or a parcel along the way and get paid using Gemoo’s app.
That’s why Khaled and Hasan are confident they’d be able to onboard 10,000 drivers across Atlantic Canada, a region they hope to cover within six months of launching.
“Most of these drivers they will be doing a part-time job. Sixty-to-70-per cent, I think, will be doing only 10-to-15 hours a week [for Gemoo],” Khaled said.
“This is the part of extra employment that will be created in Atlantic [Canada]. There’s a need for that. So it’s like new jobs that will be created, we’re not competing with other existing providers. This is where Gemoo stands,” Hasan added.
Ride-hailing and ride-sharing have been a topic of conversation in New Brunswick lately after Saint John said it will draft a by-law which would allow such businesses to run in the city.
Khaled said there are currently no by-laws in Moncton that covers rideshare services like Gemoo’s. There is a taxicab by-law, but that doesn’t prohibit Gemoo from operating, he said. The company is in talks with municipal officials on the legalities of the service.
For businesses seeking to have goods or food delivered, Gemoo will install a small kiosk machine and create an account for them.
“So if you own a pizza store with Gemoo, whenever you get an order, you just click on your tablet or phone, and you bring a Gemoo driver to deliver it for you,” Khaled said.
Here’s a look at what the app and web version look like:
In the future, Gemoo plans to also allow consumers to ask its drivers to pick up flowers from the store, or keys they’ve forgotten at their office, among other things.
“But we are not a platform to order food or goods, we are the third party,” Khaled clarified.
The passenger and delivery sides of the business will require different kinds of insurance, Hasan admits. Gemoo will have on-demand insurance for drivers, which will begin coverage when the driver starts his process. In the meantime, taxi drivers who wish to join Gemoo can use the insurance they already have.
Down the road, Hasan and Khaled are hoping to integrate Gemoo’s technology into cities’ transportation systems through what is called Mobility-as-a-Service. Under this model, Gemoo will serve as the platform that helps public transportation users move seamlessly from their original location to their destination.
“So if you want to use a bus between two cities and you need something linking your first or last mile – from your home to the station, and later, from the station to your destination – this is where Gemoo can cover those miles,” Khaled explained. “This is where we plan to cooperate with transit companies so people will be able to use the public transport more.”
At the core of it, Khaled and Hasan want to help cities improve their transportation systems.
“This is exactly our business model – to go to these cities to enhance the transportation system, with cooperation from the cities. We need to share with them a model where we can work together to make the cities’ transportation better,” Hasan said.