ST. CROIX — A technology company wants to offer a rideshare application that would allow Virgin Islanders and visitors to be driven by vetted and approved residents from one location to another at the tap of the screen on their smartphones without relying on limited taxi services, but the law needs to be amended to legally allow it.
Executive branch officials heard a virtual presentation coordinated by St. Croix Administrator Sammuel Sanes about plans to launch VI Ride in the territory on Wednesday from representatives of Mozaic Group Partners LLC, a leading, independent global provider of financial service technologies to banks.
In addition to a limited pool of rental vehicles for tourists, the company discussed a need to have an alternative option for public transportation beyond taxi drivers given the lack of available taxis in the evenings and on weekends.
“The goal is really to provide that flexibility to people who need that access,” Marlon Lucero, Mozaic president and co-founder, who has ties to the territory dating back 25 years, said. “We see that there’s a need for this.”
Lucero said he envisions the VI Ride app being used by people who might want to have an extra glass of wine while dining out in addition to tourists interested in seeing what downtown has to offer at night.
“This will allow for that,” he said. “It most likely will be after 10 at night. If there’s a demand, there will be drivers.”
Attorney Richard Evangelista, chief legal counsel for the Office of the Governor, said during the virtual presentation that he has been an advocate for rideshare apps in the territory ever since he started serving as commissioner of the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs, a position he held from 2019 until last August.
“The Virgin Islands is ripe, it’s open,” he said. “We can have 10, 20 rideshare applications.”
Evangelista, who participated in the virtual meeting along with Collette Monroe, Governor Albert Bryan Jr.’s senior policy advisor, said he met with members of the Virgin Islands Taxicab Commission and taxi drivers while leading DLCA to discuss the option for rideshare apps in the territory. He said he believes there is room for both taxi drivers and rideshare drivers, suggesting rideshare drivers could operate at night when taxis are not available.
“I think the lobby has to be on the Legislature to amend the law — the definition of vehicle for hire, and just permit both types of ridership to coexist in the Virgin Islands,” he said. “It does it everywhere and, you know, we’re a capitalist society.”
Mark Cote, Mozaic solutions architect, conducted the virtual presentation as he provided details about how the company got to the point where it is now ready to launch the VI Ride app.
WATCH: VI Ride Demo
“When we started considering our rideshare project for the Virgin Islands, we first thought about developing it ourselves, but we were quickly discouraged,” he said. “It’s not that the programming itself would have been complicated; it’s more that there’s so many moving parts to a platform like this, and to keep it both stable with bug fixes and current with new features would have been a really tall order.”
After evaluating 20 ridesharing platforms in various categories, Cote said Mozaic selected Onde, which is present in over 60 countries and powers more than 400 rideshare platforms, processing over 2 million rides a day. He said Onde’s 24/7 support was unmatched by the other rideshare platforms in terms of both responding in a timely manner as well as the quality of responses. He said Onde fulfills the technical specifications Mozaic desired, especially its adhesion to the General Data Protection Regulation, the world’s toughest privacy and security law adopted by the European Union in 2016.
Discussing startup and operational costs to develop the ridesharing app, Cote said $60,000 would be required to purchase the Onde platform, review legal contracts, obtain liability and cyber insurance, market the VI Ride app, build a website, secure an energy-independent office and equipment, and staff the office.
Lucero pointed out the need for an amendment to the law before Mozaic could launch the rideshare app. He said the company is eager, noting it is now up to the Legislature and the Bryan/Roach administration.
“We are proposing a solution,” he said. “We’re ready to go.”
