Fortune News | Feb 14,2026
A few weeks ago, what could be a familiar drama for many unfolded before me.
I was late, logged my details in the taxi-hailing app, and was matched with a driver supposedly one minute away. I called, explained the turn, and relaxed until the estimate jumped to five minutes. We talked again. One minute became half an hour.
Night amplifies my stress. After dark, I rely even more on ride services, preferring them to crowded minibuses. I enter the destination precisely, hoping the driver truly intends to complete it. A few blocks before arrival, a conversation begins. She hesitates, questions the address, and suggests stopping early. What was meant to be a seamless ride becomes a street-corner negotiation.
These frictions are not unique to Addis Abeba. Ride-hailing has reshaped mobility worldwide, but consistency remains elusive, especially in cities that expand faster than their infrastructure can keep up with.
Another episode still baffles me. I was near Meqrez Hospital in Casanchis, bound for 22 Mazoria. The app paired me with a driver parked two minutes away at the Urale Church roundabout. When I called, he said, “I can’t come. I’m standing far away from where you are.”
I cancelled and tried again. The next driver, in the same spot, accepted and arrived in two minutes.
When I am running late, when night presses close, or when I need to visit an address I have never seen, I reach for my phone and request a ride, a taxi-hailing service now part of ordinary city life.
I was born in Dire Dawa but have lived in Addis Abeba since I was three. Yet, I often confess - half in jest and half in truth - that I do not know the capital as well as I should. Addis Abeba keeps rearranging itself. Roads bend, landmarks vanish, and buildings sprout where open space once stretched. My ignorance has become a convenient excuse whenever I miss a turn. The ride-hailing apps promise a simple cure, a driver who knows the city better than I do. Supposedly.
But the cure can fail, too. More than once, the driver, and even the navigation voice guiding him, has sounded as puzzled as I am. In those moments, I feel like a lost tourist in my own hometown. Addis Abeba’s roads strain under rapid growth. The population was projected to top 5.9 million by 2025, and registered vehicles passed 720,000 in 2021. Congestion is now a daily tax on time and patience.
Most residents walk or ride public transport. These modes account for more than 80pc of trips. Private cars cover roughly 15pc but swallow more than 60pc of road space. More metal on wheels has not brought smoother flow. Instead, vehicle growth tightens the knot, while bus lanes and sidewalks lag behind demand.
Against this backdrop, ride-hailing has become a convenience and a coping mechanism. Every booking is a wager that the app, the driver and the city’s traffic converge. The decision feels rational. Predictable, even, until it is not.
The routine starts with the driver's first call after accepting the job.
“Where are you at?” he would ask, though the pickup pin and destination are already in the system.
He wants to know again the exact corner, the direction the caller faces, and a landmark visible from there. Then she would ask where the caller is headed. The exchange can run smoothly or dissolve into guesswork. I have waited half an hour for a driver, while Google Maps insisted it was one minute away.
That small blue car icon inching toward us is not only code. It is emotion. We watch it glide, stop, circle, and sometimes retreat. Hope flickers with every recalculation, and frustration grows each time the estimate jumps.
Globally, companies have built customer service teams, in-app help desks, and detailed rating systems. In many markets, riders benefit from accurate GPS, rich map data and algorithms that steer cars through traffic and around closures. Platforms continuously refine routes, so estimated arrival times feel trustworthy.
Firms such as Uber deploy location-tracking systems, map-quality metrics, and automated error-correction tools to reduce pickup delays. Real-time updates adjust for congestion, accidents and construction. In well-wired cities, the result is smoother pickups and fewer navigation arguments.
In developing cities, obstacles multiply. GPS signals stutter, mobile data slips, street names shift or never existed. Some drivers lack training in digital navigation. Others turn down unfamiliar neighbourhoods after dark but accept fares anyway, hoping to renegotiate along the way. The service works, but not predictably.
Rideservice operators could invest more in training drivers to read digital maps, follow voice prompts, and communicate clearly. They could set standards on accepting or cancelling trips and on matching the app’s arrival clock. Strengthening map data and building software that does not panic when connectivity fades would erase many daily irritants.
Passengers, too, adapt. Some call first to describe landmarks in painstaking detail, such as the orange kiosk, the billboard with the coffee cup, and the green-painted gate. Others drop location pins through chat apps because they no longer trust the app’s own coordinates. A shared language of improvisation has emerged, half digital and half streetwise.
For all the flaws, riders keep returning. Walking long distances or waiting for overcrowded taxis can be worse. Ride-hailing offers a measure of comfort, including a seat, a direct route, and a feeling of control. However, the comfort is fragile, but in a city where traffic can steal hours, even a fragile promise carries weight.
Drivers face their own frustrations as fuel prices rise and maintenance costs climb, and every cancelled trip means wasted kilometres. Some worry that the ratings system favours passengers and punishes honest mistakes. Others admit they feel pressured to accept requests they would rather skip, fearing penalties from the platform. They juggle navigation glitches alongside economic realities.
City officials, meanwhile, wrestle with broader transport questions of how to widen roads, expand bus corridors, improve sidewalks and regulate digital platforms without stifling innovation. Each new flyover or light rail extension changes travel patterns and makes map data outdated again. Progress and confusion march in step.
Technology alone will not untangle the traffic. But better data, clearer rules and focused training could cut delays and restore trust. A driver confident with the map is less likely to circle the block three times. An app that handles weak signals can keep its promises. A passenger who believes the estimate is real could spend less time staring at a blue icon that will not land.
That uncertainty carries an emotional cost. Waiting in the midday sun or beneath night rain while a phone battery fades, riders bargain with time. They glance at crowded minibuses rumbling past and debate defecting. Each slipping minute chips away at the notion that software rules the streets and reminds everyone how much Addis Abeba depends upon improvisation.
Friends trade stories of drivers who refused cashless payment, whose maps pinned the National Theatre in the middle of a river, or who demanded a renegotiated fare halfway through the trip. Those tales, told with exasperated laughter, form a daily, ongoing diary of a metropolis still stitching digital promises to physical reality.
Ride-hailing is not only about algorithms but about minutes, movement and the fragile space between expectation and experience. For many in Addis Abeba, it remains the daily wager we place when we are late, when darkness falls or when we head somewhere new, hoping this time the screen and the street will finally align.
PUBLISHED ON
Feb 14,2026 [ VOL
26 , NO
1346]
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