Five riders who never sit in a closed road

Thabo runs a small motorbike courier company in Johannesburg, with five riders and a lot of parcels. Every morning the riders set off on the same old routes. Then a road is closed in Braamfontein, or roadworks block Rosebank, and a rider sits in it for an hour. Parcels arrive late, customers phone angry, and Thabo spends his day saying sorry. With xMap Flows, Thabo built Pathfinder. Every morning at six, Pathfinder takes the day's drops, checks each one for road closures and roadworks nearby, shares the stops between the five riders in the best order, sends each rider his route with the closures marked, picks out the drops with a closure next door, and warns those customers before they wait. At six, Pathfinder finds three closures. Four drops sit right next to one, so those riders know before they leave, and those customers get a new time. By noon, not one rider has sat in a closed road, and the phone stays quiet. Thabo used to say sorry all day. Now his riders just get there.

The story in words