We are a close knit team of people who know the public and private transport business inside out. With decades of experience with managing fleets of passenger vehicles, we know what works and what doesnt.
Trinidadians and tobagonians want safe and reliable transport, without having to pay over the top. This includes people who have mobility challenges, are blind, deaf or differently abled in other ways. Phare rideshare caters to everyone by having an accessible website and app, a range of vehicle types, professional drivers, and a team that puts customer service first.
most businesses start with an idea. Ours started with love.
Back in the 1970's, a man named joe bought an off-white singer vogue car, an upmarket version of the hillman hunter, licence plate number pn 9552. There were probably fewer than five cars like it in trinidad and tobago, so it stood out. When he decided to work taxi as a side hustle in his hometown of belmont, the uniqueness of the car and the man behind the wheel, worked in his favour.
Belmont was a place he knew like the back of his hand, but his earlier youthful days performing around the country as the bass guitarist in one of that era's many combo sides had helped him to become familiar with lots of other areas around trinidad and tobago. When he moved to arima he didn't break a stride.
He grew his transport business over the next few decades, putting a series of maxi taxis (one of which he named inspiration), 7 seater minivans, and regular cars on the road, and food on the table. He had a large family, including a deaf son, and several of his family members later joined the transport scene with vehicles and fleets of their own. Joe was a small man with big ideas, known for his sense of fairness, integrity, hearty laugh, and sweet guitar playing at the end of a day of hard work.
Joe is in his 70's now, long retired. He no longer drives or plays the guitar in the cool of the evening. He plays an altogether different role now: he is the inspiration behind phare, the embodiment of its values, the person without whom it would never have existed.
The phare team taps into this deep source of inspiration, knowledge and wisdom, as well as our own years of experience in the transport sector, adoption and development of technology, and our ability to drive innovation in a sector that is ripe for it.
Rideshare is in vogue now, but for us, getting people wherever they want to go safely with a smile on our faces and a song in our hearts is very much part of our dna. We might be a new brand but we have 50 solid years of tradition behind us.
We invite you to join the phare family. Ride with us. Drive with us. Just download the app, upload your documents, and call that joe!
Download the Rider app Download the Driver app
our vision is to become the most used and loved rideshare service in the caribbean within the first year of operation.
our mission is to democratise rideshare by providing accessible and affordable rides, and opportunities to generate income to people from all walks of life.
Accessibility - we cater to all citizens and visitors, and make every effort to ensure that the phare app and the rideshare service are as accessible as possible.
Fairness - our model where the rider offers a price and the driver(s) can either accept it or suggest a different price, is as fair as it can be. We get out of the way. You get on with it.
Availability - we sign up drivers from all over the country, as we believe that no matter where in trinidad and tobago someone lives, works, studies, plays or prays, rideshare should be available to them. When we say we go the extra mile, we mean it literally.
ashley mitchell aka the driver
ashley is an innovation expert who has helped thousands of startups and other businesses in the caribbean and europe to find new ways to create and deliver value. Phare rideshare is one of them, poised to disrupt transport sector in trinidad and tobago and other territories of the region. When ashley adds up all of the miles he has travelled in taxis, maxi taxis and ph cars over the years, it works out to more than three times the distance around the earths equator.
Nigel roach aka the mechanic
nigel is our technology lead, the person who is responsible for keeping our systems up and running, and meeting the evolving needs of our cherished drivers and passengers. Nigel has worked with some of the most technologically advanced companies in the caribbean region as well as those - and they are many that needed his helping hand to up their game. To say that he is a tech whiz would be a gross understatement.
Sharon forde aka the conductor
sharon handles most of the operations of the business, including customer service, driver on-boarding, rider and driver verifications, and of course the finance bits. Her background is in driver management and despatch, accounting and industrial relations. And in case you are wondering, drivers: no, she cannot help you with tickets, despite her being the conductor. Just avoid getting them.
