When Raymond Dufton first met his enterprise accomplice Barney Koneferenisi he knew one thing was incorrect
“He’s getting out of a hatchback car and I thought, ‘this is taking a little longer than normal’,” Dufton stated.
“He says, ‘I think I’ve just got ripped off Raymond’. I said ‘what do you mean?’ He said the guy wanted $240 dollars to bring me from Middlemore Hospital to here.”
The taxi journey ought to have price $65-$75, or $80 in peak hour site visitors.
“The driver takes a longer route to raise the meter because the taxi driver knows that that person with a disability has a concession card that will chop the fee in half,” Koneferenisi stated.
But that is simply the tip of the iceberg. When they surveyed 300 people with disabilities, females respondents reported being sexually harassed and assaulted and 71 % reported cancellations after drivers see their service animals or wheelchairs.
“Most of these drivers what they don’t realise is after they ditch us where we’re supposed to get picked up most of us go to the toilet and cry ourselves,” Koneferenisi stated.
But they discovered complaints to taxi and rideshare corporations fell on deaf ears so the partners took issues into their very own arms.
“Rather than being negative let’s go positive,” Dufton stated.
“Let’s put our energy into creating our own service,” Koneferenisi added.
Their marketing strategy hangs in Koneferenisi’s room and there is a Givealittle web page to elevate cash for one van and design an app costing $80,000.
The app will cater to people with completely different bodily capabilities.
“Ultimately the people are trying to go from A-B so if we can help them do that and take care of the technology side of things then that’s what we’ll try to do,” Mieszko Jan Iwaskow stated.
The pair are a good distance off from reaching their monetary objective however are hopeful positive factors from their first van will snowball right into a fleet.
Koneferenisi stated he permits for three hours earlier than conferences. When automobiles cancel he wheels himself to his vacation spot.
“You get a good cardio exercise you get to see the outside view as well.”
But he hopes quickly a van for him and his mates can be only a click on away.