@Prime: Tramigo costs 20K to install, its a one time cost no monthly charges at all. Comes with a 2 year warranty. The tracking device uses a sim card which i only top up with 300 bob per month. Sim card has the 10bob per day for 200 sms bundle from Safcom. I would suggest you don't deal with the Tramigo Kenya Office. Their country manager is some idiot by the name Daniel Njau. Three of my units had failed last year coz of improper installation by his technician and the dude was evasive and not willing to honour the 24 month warranty. Had to go "psycho" with him and was sorted in a day after having waited for 2 months.

My reasons for saying Tramigo is good. Vehicle sends a trip start report if it moves for a distance of more than 300m. You can configure it to send location reports every x minutes/hours or every x km...whichever is convenient for you. If the vehicle stops for more than 15min or if it is switched off, it will send you a trip report that summarize distance, time, max speed etc. Really helped me do away with wayward drivers who couldn't be rehabilitated. I once had a driver who used to do town service in the evenings, thats when i realized trackers are a necessity not an option.

About Murengo, its a necessary evil but most drivers prefer it coz they pocket/steal more. On our route you will always get a chance to "beba kwa stage", only problem is at what time. So instead of waiting in line to beba at 4 in the evening if you are in Nairobi, you can go for a Murengo then come back coz its usually busy from the Muranga end. How i operate is give the drivers a minimum target for every Murengo trip. This i learnt by actually driving the mat myself. Every driver i get i tell them my figure for Murengo which is relatively high to what they normally bring, but still achievable. Thats usually the bait. They fall for it by complaining its too high. Then i tell them we'll go for the murengo with them. On most occasions i have hit and surpassed the figure. Those who cant put up usually quit. Please dont do this if you are not familiar with the route dynamics otherwise the driver will make a point of showing you how Murengo has no cash. When i do it, i drive the vehicle myself. My route is Muranga Nairobi. If the vehicle gets a slot kwa stage, i get anything between 2600 to 3250 one way depending on whether the fare is 200 or 250. For murengo, i insist on minimum 2k but they dont bring that always. Most bring 1800. The thugs among them can even bring you 1500 at which point i tell them "Naona ni kama kazi imekushinda". They get the point and style up. Everyone has a family to feed, they cant stand being fired. For Murengo, here is the maths, they will always get passengers to Thika, i have no conductor so thats 1400 off peak or around 2000 peak. Then thika to kenol then kenol to muranga. They always hit the 2k figure even on the days they bring me 1800. Highest i have made when i am with the vehicle on Murengo was 2400. A plus for me is no bribing of cops as part of the shuttle policy so driver never comes with stories about cops. And my vehicles are always in tip top condition, i never let a driver repair a vehicle for me. Overall i try to get a balance between a driver who "maintains the vehicle" while delivering reasonable returns.

I agree with Matatuman 100% on tracking. We have had our new mat on town service for a week now. The driver we had was seconded by the SACCO. The conductor was our own guy. The driver started by protesting that he has no "access" to the conductor's cash since we offload the conductor 100% after each trip. With the tracker, we have linked to a web platform where we view the position of the bus every 15 secs. This has completely dismantled possibility of any stories and unwarranted trips. You get reports with actual start time, mileage, stop time, duration of idleness, time when ACC is off etc.

After two days with this level of monitoring, the driver resigned na akasema "Hakuna dereva atakubali kazi inayofanywa na supervision namna hii".

All the cash made is fully accounted for to the last cent.

We have enrolled a new driver who is now fully aware of the "no cash handling" policy for drivers

More to follow...

My PETROL perspective. I have been running 2 petrol boxes for the last 7/8 months. My route takes about 4 hours one way so going and coming back makes a productive day for me. I shoot for 28 work days, but it does not always work out.
When I started the vehicles averaged 8km/litre so a round trip cost me about 3700 in fuel. This is now closer to 3500 with the fuel price drop and lsoing efficiency over time. The take after the sacco share for going and coming is 9,100. Parking fees in all counties take up 640. Lunch, car wash,Driver misc take up about 500 so I end up with about 4200. After insurance and servicing the month ends up similar to what I have seen others post here.

Issues. Only 2 "mechanical" so far.My oil consumption has gone up a lot over the last 2 months. Initially I only changed during monthly servicing but now it has to be topped up weekly. Yes, I have checked for leaks and there are no obvious causes we can find.
One of the fuel pumps just up & died.Replaced and no issues since.

So far they are profitable. With the differential in fuel prices the diesel would make more for me but I do not know if there are other issues specific to diesel that would eat the profits and balance it out.
For me I look at these returns relative to my rentals and retirement funds. The mats are more than holding their own.

........On another note, how much would I fetch for a box KCD year 2007 with changed 1KZ Diesel engine? 7l 9 seater with adds-on. Just very very rough estimates from veterans for planning purposes.

Confused as ever. 2 weeks ago I did mombasa-nairobi with 3500 in a auto transmission petrol box. No load. Speeds consistently hovering between 80 and 90. Gentle pickup. Hata hiyo 3500 ilikuwa nyingi. Strange but true. Somehow Im beginning to believe that the high fuel consumption may largely be attributed sorely to drivers trying to get the same performance from their diesel colleagues.Hard driving. Diesels are also driven hard but they have the advantage of torque and turbo at their disposal

Confused as ever. 2 weeks ago I did mombasa-nairobi with 3500 in a auto transmission petrol box. No load. Speeds consistently hovering between 80 and 90. Gentle pickup. Hata hiyo 3500 ilikuwa nyingi. Strange but true. Somehow Im beginning to believe that the high fuel consumption may largely be attributed sorely to drivers trying to get the same performance from their diesel colleagues.Hard driving. Diesels are also driven hard but they have the advantage of torque and turbo at their disposal

@Tokyo: This is slightly off topic. Might you be knowing any companies/agents that ship or handle less than container load exports from Nihon?