Safetrip
MLC Voyager | Solar Move Africa
SafeTrip is the only road safety platform in Zambia built to work on a basic feature phone with no internet required, reaching the 55% of urban commuters who do not own smartphones. A commuter dials a short code, registers their trip in under a minute, and their family receives automatic safety alerts without needing internet or a smartphone on either end. Through the Verified Shield Model, SafeTrip integrates real-time driver monitoring, offline GPS tracking, embedded micro-insurance, and direct regulatory enforcement through RTSA into one seamless USSD experience at the point of travel.
10,000 Lives Impacted
I lost my niece in a road accident on public transport. We found out three hours later. She was a breadwinner, a single mother with no insurance, no savings buffer, and a family left with nothing but grief and funeral costs they could not afford. That experience is why SafeTrip exists.
In Zambia, 35,731 road accidents were recorded in 2024, killing 2,199 people. Emergency response times routinely exceed two hours simply because no one knows where the vehicle is. Beyond the deaths, families living below $2.15 per day spend ZMW 50 to 100 every month on phone calls just checking whether their person arrived safely. We call it the anxiety tax. It quietly takes money that should go to food, school fees and health.
SafeTrip stops that. A commuter activates a trip in seconds. Their family gets an alert when they arrive. If the driver speeds, it is logged and sent to RTSA immediately. If an accident happens, the embedded insurance responds with no paperwork and no waiting. Our pilot targets 10,000 users, 5,000 insurance policies, a 15% reduction in speeding violations, and ZMW 1,000,000 back in household pockets within 10 months.
The Innovation
SafeTrip was built around one question: what does safety actually look like for someone earning less than $2.15 a day who has to get on a bus every morning?
The answer had to work on a basic phone, cost next to nothing per trip, and close three gaps at once. Tell the family the person is moving. Alert someone if the driver is being reckless. And cover the commuter if the worst happens. That is the Verified Shield Model, delivered through USSD and a simple app, across five corridors: Lusaka to Kitwe, Lusaka to Ndola, Lusaka to Livingstone, Lusaka to Chipata, and Lusaka to Solwezi.
What makes this different is the accountability alliance behind it. SafeTrip provides the technology. RTSA acts on flagged violations. Mukuba University, with a signed MOU, independently tracks and publishes outcomes through the Safety Data Index. Bus Operator Associations bring drivers into the system. None of us could do this alone and that is the point.
The revenue model runs on ZMW 5 to 10 per trip, operator subscriptions, and insurance commissions. We are designed to stand on our own within 18 months. We are not building a product for Lusaka. We are building the standard for safer urban transport in Africa.
About Association for Humanitarian Development
Vision: Socially and Economically, Just and Peaceful Society
Mission: Offer communities and institutions, the art and set of options, for their development, empowerment, institutional strengthening and continuous learning within their framework to live with human dignity, social justice, peace, and harmony.
Goal: AHD goals is to bring together the citizens from disadvantaged groups irrespective of their gender, class, religion or sect, have opportunities for growth, participation in local and national affairs which impact their lives.
