Smartie Rides, an on-demand ride-hailing service in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, has launched positioning the locally developed platform as a home-grown alternative to international players such as Uber and Grab.<\/strong><\/p>\n The service lets locals and visitors request and book rides directly through the Smartie app. Founder and chief executive Brett Baudinet said the launch reflected an ambition to build world-class technology in the Pacific rather than wait for it to arrive from elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople tend to assume technology like this has to come from Silicon Valley, Sydney or Singapore \u2013 we\u2019ve built Smartie right here in Rarotonga,\u201d Baudinet said. \u201cWe\u2019re a small island, but that doesn\u2019t mean we should have small ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n Baudinet said Smartie Rides was designed to undercut the cost of traditional taxi transport on the island, which he said could discourage locals from using paid transport altogether \u2013 including for trips home after a night out.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the choice is between driving your own car or paying for transport that feels unaffordable, people can make the wrong decision,\u201d he said. \u201cA safe ride home shouldn\u2019t feel like a luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n Following a soft launch, Baudinet said visitor uptake had been strong, with users responding well to the ride experience, competitive rates and the ability to access multiple services \u2013 including Smartie\u2019s existing food delivery offering \u2013 through a single app.<\/p>\n Smartie Tours is due to launch this month, joining Rides and food delivery under the platform\u2019s super-app model. Baudinet said the company saw scope to eventually take the platform into other Pacific island markets.<\/p>\n Smartie Rides is available now on iOS and Android.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n kabarsula SLOT <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Smartie Rides, an on-demand ride-hailing service in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, has launched positioning the locally…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Founder](\"https:\/\/travelweekly.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Smartie-First-Ride-Selfie-1024x768.jpg\"\/)
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