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Наталя ХандусенкоStartup
29 October 2026, 10:00
2026-10-29
BlaBlaCar in Kyiv. The capital has launched a free passenger search service "Zbig" - an alternative to taxis during emergencies and bad weather
In the face of constant transportation difficulties, traffic jams, and jumps in taxi prices during air raids or bad weather, a new tool for getting around has appeared in the capital. A team of four Kyiv IT specialists created "Zbig" in their spare time — a free service in the format of a Telegram bot for finding fellow travelers in Kyiv, which works on the principle of BlaBlaCar.
The service was launched only a few days ago, but it has already attracted its first users and shown real trips around the city. Dev.ua spoke with one of the project's co-founders, Vladyslav, about the idea behind the creation, technical features, security, and first results (the developers do not disclose their full names due to the specifics of their main activity).
In the face of constant transportation difficulties, traffic jams, and jumps in taxi prices during air raids or bad weather, a new tool for getting around has appeared in the capital. A team of four Kyiv IT specialists created "Zbig" in their spare time — a free service in the format of a Telegram bot for finding fellow travelers in Kyiv, which works on the principle of BlaBlaCar.
The service was launched only a few days ago, but it has already attracted its first users and shown real trips around the city. Dev.ua spoke with one of the project's co-founders, Vladyslav, about the idea behind the creation, technical features, security, and first results (the developers do not disclose their full names due to the specifics of their main activity).
"The idea came when I opened Uklon and saw 900 UAH for a trip. Anxiety, rain, and a bunch of cars were driving past me in the same direction, and each had three free seats. So we thought: why go separately if you're on the same road?", Vladyslav recalls.
"Zbig" is a free service where a driver, who is already on his own business, picks up those who are on the way with him. For passengers, it is an additional way to get to their destination faster, without waiting for a taxi or public transport with delays.
The project was created entirely in-house by a team of four specialists who divided development, analytics, security, design, and user support. Artificial intelligence was used only as an auxiliary tool to speed up processes, but the logic and architecture were determined by the IT specialists themselves.
Accurate geodesy: the route and "coincidence" of paths are calculated along real roads, not along a straight line.
Flexibility for the driver: the driver himself indicates how many minutes he is willing to deviate from the route (0, 3, 5 or 10 minutes).
Regular trips: by setting up a daily route once, the driver automates its publication.
Interactivity: a live map of cars already driving through the city and a "need it now" function for an urgent search for drivers nearby.
Internal tools: in-app chat, bot notifications, blind rating system and user ranks (from "Rookie" to "King of the Road").
Simple algorithm and 0% commission
The principle of operation of the platform is as simple as possible.
The driver publishes his usual route (from where, to where, when and how many free seats are available). By default, the trip is free, but the driver can specify the option "by arrangement" (from 50 UAH). The passenger pays this amount directly to the driver, and the service commission is 0%.
The passenger indicates the desired direction and sees drivers who are actually on the way - with details of where to get off, how much to walk and how much the driver will deviate from the route. After clicking the "I'm going with you" button, the seat is reserved. You can also choose a free car directly on the map.
After the trip, participants leave reviews, which are used to form a rating.
User safety
The developers paid special attention to security issues - both at the level of human interaction and at the level of IT infrastructure.
Passenger and driver safety:
registration is carried out only through real Telegram accounts with a confirmed phone number;
The driver's contacts and car number are revealed to the passenger only after confirming the trip;
the application has an SOS button, a quick call to 102/112, and the ability to send the trip track to loved ones with one touch;
reviews work "blindly" (which makes it impossible to retaliate for ratings), and late cancellations are reflected in the profile;
Prepayment is prohibited: card numbers in the chat are hidden until confirmation, and links to payment "banks" are blocked;
During an air alarm, safety instructions are displayed, and during curfew, some functions are automatically disabled.
"Today, even large services are being hacked, so protection was built in from day one. The application meets certain security criteria, and we check it with active attacks for possible infrastructure vulnerabilities — just like an attacker would act, only before him. The servers are reliably protected: all traffic is encrypted, the service runs on Cloudflare with protection against DDoS attacks, and the number of requests is limited, so it will not be possible to collect user data en masse," Vladyslav assures.
First results
The service has been operating for a little less than two days, but is already showing positive dynamics of use by Kyiv residents.
Total audience: over 920 users opened the app;
Registered users: 141 passengers (121 with confirmed number) and 24 drivers with added cars;
Activity: 81 trips posted by drivers, 157 time-specific requests and 59 urgent "Now" requests created. 42 bookings made, and 8 trips have already been successfully completed.
The team's main task right now is to attract new drivers — especially those who commute between the left and right banks of Kyiv every day.
In the upcoming updates, the developers plan to add route selection and a built-in navigator for drivers, a "favorite drivers" function, and arrival time calculation taking into account traffic jams. The team is considering scaling to other cities in Ukraine after the service is fully operational in the capital.
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