About AfriBUD
Building South Africa's most trusted carpooling platform.
Our Mission
South Africans spend billions on fuel every year. Most cars on the road carry only the driver. AfriBUD exists to change that — by making it safe, legal, and effortless to share rides and split costs.
We're not a taxi service. We're a carpooling platform built around the National Land Transport Act (NLTA). Drivers recover costs. Riders get affordable transport. Everyone benefits.
Why NLTA Compliance Matters
The NLTA distinguishes between a lift club (cost-recovery only, legal) and an unlicensed taxi service (profit-making, illegal without an operating licence). Many ride-sharing apps blur this line. AfriBUD doesn't.
Our backend calculates every fare using a fixed, transparent formula: (fuel cost + toll cost) ÷ passengers, capped at R2000 per seat. Drivers cannot set arbitrary prices. Surge pricing is disabled at the database level (surge_multiplier = 1.00). The platform fee is a flat R5 — never a percentage of the fare.
Technology
AfriBUD runs as a modular monolith today — one Go backend on Render, one PostgreSQL database on Supabase, and private document storage — with the marketing site and admin panel on Vercel. Additional microservices in the repo are future scope, not live production paths.
- Backend: Go (Gin) mobile API on Render, PostgreSQL (Supabase), optional S3-compatible storage for driver documents
- Mobile app: Expo React Native (iOS, Android)
- Web: Next.js marketing site + JWT-gated admin verification panel (Vercel)
- Payments: Paystack (South African payment gateway) for the R5 platform fee
- Auth: Google Sign-In (JWT sessions). Email/password remains as a fallback on the app.
Safety First
Every driver undergoes manual document verification before they can offer rides: South African ID, driver's licence, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance. Admin reviewers check each document in a dedicated web panel before approval.
Riders and drivers can chat before the ride, share live locations, and trigger an SOS alert that notifies emergency contacts and AfriBUD support.