By Ashif Black, Country Representative for inDrive South Africa
When an e-hailing driver receives a trip request, the fare displayed on their screen may look like a simple number, yet increasingly sophisticated technology can sit behind that number, determining what a journey is worth and ultimately influencing what a driver can earn.
This has come under renewed scrutiny with around 241,000 Uber drivers in Europe launching legal action challenging the company’s use of an AI-powered system to set pay and allocate work. The claim alleges that automated decision-making and driver data are being used in ways that can push down individual earnings.
While the case will be decided in Europe, the questions it raises are relevant to South Africa too. As AI and algorithms play a greater role in the platform economy, how much control should the people doing the work retain over the price of that work?
When the economics are hidden
Every trip comes with operating costs, including fuel, maintenance and the distance travelled to collect a passenger. These affect whether a particular fare makes economic sense, but greater transparency around pricing is key.
In fact, a 2026 study of Uber drivers in Johannesburg identified algorithmic opacity, fluctuating operating costs and income instability as core sources of precarity. Drivers wanted greater earnings security and due process, while also placing significant value on retaining flexibility and autonomy.
POPIA also places limits on certain decisions made solely through automated processing when those decisions significantly affect a person. It also recognises the importance of people being able to understand how such decisions are made and, in certain circumstances, challenge them.
For e-hailing, this raises an important question: if a platform uses a driver’s personal data and behaviour to help determine the work or fares they are offered, how much should that driver know about how the decision was reached? As platforms make greater use of AI and automated systems, transparency around how driver data informs decisions that affect their livelihoods will become increasingly important.
Technology should facilitate the choice
Technology is essential to modern e-hailing, from connecting riders and drivers to helping platforms respond to changing demand, and can make mobility more efficient without necessarily having to dictate the final value of every journey.
When a passenger requests a trip on inDrive, for instance, they propose a fare. Drivers can accept it, decline it or make a counteroffer. Both parties see and agree to the price before the journey begins. In this way, the driver can consider the distance to the passenger, the destination and whether the fare makes the trip worthwhile. Passengers similarly have a say in what they are prepared to pay.
The European lawsuit should as such prompt a wider conversation across Africa about how platform economies develop. Uber’s recent decisions to leave Nigeria and Uganda are another reminder that ride-hailing markets on the continent operate under their own economic pressures, and that sustainable platforms need models that work for the people on both sides of the transaction.
As AI becomes more capable of making decisions about work, South African platforms should now be thinking about the growing need for transparency when it comes to pricing and the responsible use of data, not to mention considering where human choice belongs.
ENDS
