I recently watched the Anthony Bourdain episode where he goes to Nairobi and rides on a "matatu", which are essentially privately operated party buses for commuters. I thought that was actually a pretty neat idea and could definitely see a market for that.
matatu just means taxi or something like that (it actually comes from 'three' in Swahili because the conductors used to yell "give me three" at potential passengers). they are absolutely no fun to ride since the operators pack them to the brim with people and other cargo (animals too) and they wait until full to take off (so sometimes, for infrequently traveled routes you end up waiting hours). this is all to say nothing of being in terrible disrepair. here is the taxi park in Kampala http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/00/37/50/05_big.jpg. each minivan is a matatu.
source: lived in Uganda for 2 years. rode matatus countless times. almost died many times. shat myself exactly twice.
technically matatu's are mass transit privately owned minivan buses and not taxis, Nairobi as well as other Kenyan cities are well served by ride sharing services like Uber and Taxify which fill the taxi need. The "tatu" or three came about because they used to charge 3 cents when they started out way back before my time. There have been some changes in the sector to address some issues like safety but it's got a long way to go. Interesting innovations popped up around the space e.g. Google launched NFC transit payments, Bebapay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BebaPay, in Nairobi a couple of years back but killed off the project (I was part of the local team when this took off)
haha I'm not saying an exact replica - I mean the general idea of a themed privately operated bus is interesting. obviously it would be subject to more regulatory scrutiny than over there. you could have a party bus vibe, or a meditation one, or a social one, etc etc.
https://explorepartsunknown.com/kenya/matatus-rule-nairobis-...