Private Transportation Charter Business

Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday November 4, 2014 at 12:9:20:

Offering transportation services is one sure way to make cool money in Nigeria but it's not just commercial or public transporters that are making the money. Just by operating a private transportation charter service, you can still make money.

This business involves having vehicles parked at your home or office and then receiving requests from customers by phone or physical visits. What makes it private is that you are not going to be offering the service by going to bus stops or taxi parks to get customers but rather customers would be calling you by phone or make special orders for transport in advance.

A Private Transportation Charter Business is not one that is shared among people that don't know themselves but rather by either a single person or group of person who have agreed to charter your vehicle for transport.

Before offering this service, you have to specify things like what you routes are, your fare rate as well as other conditions for offering the service. For small start up businesses, the rules might not be written or the business even registered but for a bigger business, you'd need to have those things in place.

I've noticed that this is one service that is really needed by many Nigerians who can pay for it but the problem is that these services are scarce and so people end up chartering for transport from commercial operators at vehicle parks.

Some Nigerians might not want to trek all the way to a public park just to take a 15 minutes transport to their destination and they might also not want to hire a full time driver and pay them about N40k a month when they don't need them everyday but they might be willing to spend at most N1000 or less for private ride to their destination. Some might want to spend about N200 while some might want to spend about N500 but they mostly want a flat fee that is laid out in advance without the need for negotiating with car drivers. Offering them a platform or service with flat based fares in advance can encourage them to patronize your business.

One important thing to have in this business is a business number. It should be a dedicated mobile phone number that allows your customers to contact you whenever they want your service. The good thing about this business is that you don't have to go to the part to pick up customers and you don' even have to paint your car in yellow and black as most commercial operators in Lagos do but you can use a private vehicle to do this.

Another cool thing about this business is that it doesn't necessarily require you to have too much capital or have a fleet of vehicles but you can even start as you can do this even as a one man business. As long as you have a vehicle, a mobile phone and waiting customers, you will always be in business.

People will always have the need to move from one place to another and by the time you have a lot of them in your phone contact and they know you are offering the service, they would readily be calling you anytime they need a lift.

It's normally good to offer this service in a place or city where there are a lot of people like in Lagos. You can decide to serve people within your local government area or within a particular zone and let them know the fare in advance so that no one feels cheated. If they are satisfied with your service, chances are that they would contact you for it again when they have the need to do so.

Don't make it too expensive for people to ride with you because it might discourage them from patronizing you frequently but let you fare rate be uniform for everybody whether they are rich or poor so that no one feels you are charging them too much because of who they are or are not.

When customers approach you for a private charter transportation service, don't just it a one time affair but rather give the your phone number and tell them they can contact you in the future anytime they want your service again.

The more you continue in this business, the more your client list would grow and the more money you will be making. It would then be a wise idea then to expand your business by perhaps getting more cars, drivers and a permanent business office.