Tlatsa - The digital passenger list for South Africa's long-distance taxis

Every seat. Every name. Every passenger, accounted for.

Tlatsa is the digital passenger list for South Africa's long-distance taxis. When a taxi departs, a sealed record of everyone aboard is already in the cloud - ready for emergency services, the association office, and the Road Accident Fund.

The paper register was never good enough

South Africa's minibus taxi industry moves more than 15 million people every day. At most ranks, the only record of who is on board is a handwritten book - names scrawled in biro, ID numbers half-legible, the whole thing sitting open on a desk for anyone to read. That book is not a passenger register. It is a live data breach, and it violates POPIA.

Tlatsa puts the existing rank passenger list onto a tablet. The queue marshal captures each passenger's name, SA ID, verified phone number, destination and next-of-kin - including any minors travelling. Every entry is validated in real time before the passenger boards. Nothing else changes at the rank.

For the association office, every trip is now a searchable record - route, vehicle, driver, passenger count - without manual data entry or paperwork. For the industry, it is the formal accountability that more than 15 million daily commuters have never had.

From the rank to a sealed record

Tlatsa follows the natural rhythm of the taxi rank. No new habits, no heavy training - the passenger list simply rides along with the journey that already happens every day.

Step 01

At the rank

The queue marshal opens the trip on the association tablet - vehicle, route, driver and departure time noted before a single passenger boards.

Step 02

Passenger registered

Name, SA ID number, destination and next-of-kin captured on the tablet. Minors recorded separately. POPIA consent timestamped at the point of capture.

Step 03

Identity verified

The SA ID is validated and a one-time PIN sent to the passenger's phone. Both must clear before they board. Wrong numbers corrected at the rank, while the passenger is still standing there.

Step 04

Seat assigned

Once verified, the passenger is marked as boarded and their seat allocated. If the vehicle reaches licensed capacity, the system blocks further boarding.

Step 05

Trip departs - record sealed

The record locks the moment the vehicle leaves the rank - every passenger, driver, vehicle, route and time sealed. Digital copies go automatically to the association and driver. Already in the cloud before the taxi reaches the first intersection.

Step 06

Ready when needed

In an accident, authorised emergency services access the verified passenger list instantly - next of kin contacted within minutes, sealed record submitted directly to the Road Accident Fund.

Live fleet visibility.
Every trip. Every vehicle.

Behind every passenger list is a management dashboard for association offices, controllers and fleet managers - real-time passenger counts, vehicle status and a complete record of every trip operated.

DashboardLive trip counts, passenger volumes, vehicles in progress, open incidents and fleet status - auto-refreshing, no manual updates needed.

Live OperationsSeat fill per vehicle, loading progress, departure readiness and assigned driver - updating in real time as passengers board at the rank.

Trip RecordsA searchable archive of every trip operated - route, association, controller, passenger count, departure time, arrival status.

Six reasons the paper register can't stay

Tlatsa is not just an emergency contact database. It closes six gaps that the paper register never could - across data protection, accident response, minor safety, insurance claims, fleet accountability and industry formalisation.

The paper register is a POPIA violation

An open book at the rank - your name, ID number and home address visible to anyone standing nearby - is not just bad practice. It is illegal under the Protection of Personal Information Act. Tlatsa is built to comply.

Informed consent captured with a timestamp at registration
Encrypted cloud storage - not a book sitting on a desk
Records automatically deleted after 12 months
Audit trail for every access to passenger data
Accessible only to authorised association personnel

The handwritten book fails in four ways

Illegible names. Wrong phone numbers. An open list anyone can photograph. A book that burns, floods or gets lost in the wreck. None of those problems exist in Tlatsa.

Typed entries - no illegible names or missing surnames
OTP confirmation - no unverified or disconnected contact numbers
Encrypted private storage - not visible to bystanders at the rank
Cloud backup - cannot be lost, damaged or destroyed
ID number validation catches errors at the point of capture

A child on a long-distance taxi is invisible to the paper register

The current passenger list has no field for minors. If something happens, emergency services have no record that a child was on board. Tlatsa closes that gap.

Minor's full name, date of birth and relationship to adult recorded
Unaccompanied minor status flagged at registration
Guardian contact captured separately from the adult passenger's details
Minor details included in the sealed passenger list
Emergency services see the child's entry the moment they access the record

When every minute matters, paper isn't enough

Road Accident Fund claims rely on accurate information to establish the circumstances of an accident - passengers on board, the driver, the vehicle, the route and the departure point. These details can all become critical evidence during an investigation or claims process.

Traditional paper passenger books are vulnerable to being lost, damaged or destroyed in an accident. Tlatsa digitises this information before the journey is underway, creating a secure cloud-based trip record that remains available even if the physical records are lost.

How Tlatsa helps

Secure digital passenger record captured before departure
Driver, vehicle registration, route, departure point and trip details recorded for every journey
Passenger emergency contact information readily available when needed
Cloud-based records that can support operators, investigators, insurers and families
Reduced reliance on paper records and improved confidence in passenger and trip verification

Tlatsa does not replace the official Road Accident Fund claims process. It provides reliable digital records that can assist operators and claimants by preserving important trip information that might otherwise be unavailable after an incident.

Two copies, automatically, the moment the taxi departs

No radio check-in required. No clipboard handed to the driver. At departure, one sealed digital copy goes to the association office and one to the driver - automatically, without anyone having to ask.

Association office receives their copy at the exact moment of departure
Driver holds their digital copy for the duration of the trip
Live fleet view - which vehicles are on the road and who is aboard each one
Searchable records across all trips, routes and operators
Association meets its safety and record-keeping obligations without additional admin

Built inside the SANTACO structure, not around it

SANTACO represents 1,300 local associations. Tlatsa works within that structure - giving associations a verified passenger register for every route and the data needed to deal with government as a formal industry.

Directly aligned with National Taxi Lekgotla 2020 resolutions on formalisation
Supports IPTN framework compliance requirements
Provides associations a verifiable passenger register for every route operated
Positions the industry for DoT and SANTACO data-sharing frameworks
Anonymised route and volume data available for transport policy planning

The National Taxi Lekgotla
named this exact problem.

In September 2020, the National Taxi Lekgotla put missing passenger data, absent complaints systems and unprofessional conduct at the top of its agenda. Tlatsa addresses each of those gaps directly, in the same structure the industry already operates within.

No formal structure, no passenger records: "The NTTT report noted the lack of formal guidelines on acceptable behaviour for both passengers and drivers, a lack of a formal structure to handle complaints and no process to listen to the needs of both passengers and drivers." - Professionalisation & Customer Care, National Taxi Lekgotla, Sept 2020

The Lekgotla called for exactly this data: "Data is needed on traffic offence records of drivers and associations, records on the involvement of minibus taxis in road accidents. Complaints lodged against drivers." - Professionalisation & Customer Care, National Taxi Lekgotla, Sept 2020

The industry carries people with no other option: "Minibus taxi services, or a variation of them, remain the backbone of public transport. They are the only choice of service in most rural and peri-urban areas and the majority of townships." - Professionalisation & Customer Care, National Taxi Lekgotla, Sept 2020

The responsibility is proportional to the scale: "Today the Taxi Industry is a multi-billion Rand industry that carries over 60% of South Africa's commuters." Those commuters travel without a verified record of their journey. Tlatsa is what changes that. - Unity & Leadership, National Taxi Lekgotla, Sept 2020

Every seat. Every name. Every passenger, accounted for.

Taxis loading
right now

The paper register was never good enough