Kenyan real estate company Dowgate Properties has today opened its first Safari Centre highway service
station, on the A104 at Naivasha, in a new servicing model for motorists and travelers, offering facilities
from electric vehicle charging stations to children’s play areas, restrooms, restaurants, and retail stores,
right beside the highway.
The center’s electric charging points are the first outside Nairobi and will make it possible for high-end electric vehicles to drive from Nairobi to Kisumu and back, by charging each way at the Naivasha Safari
Centre. This is the biggest expansion yet to the distance electric vehicles can cover in Kenya and comes
ahead of government plans to add charging stations countrywide.
“Car ownership and traveling have changed completely in the last decade and are set to change even
more as Kenyans, who now register seven times as many cars each year as they did 15 years ago, also
begin to shift towards electric vehicles (EVs). All these trends have created a demand for a new kind of
service station for travelers on the country’s vastly expanded and upgraded highway network” said
James Hoddell, Founder and Director of Dowgate Properties.
Hundreds of thousands of travelers now use Kenya’s trunk highways traveling much longer, continuous
distances than was normal when the roads were poorly surfaced and car ownership was less widespread. However, this has made tiredness a real danger for drivers, without adequate stops.
Kenya has one of the highest rates in the world of lethal road accidents, with the majority taking place on the three major highways of Nairobi to Thika, Nairobi to Mombasa, and Nairobi to Nakuru Eldoret. These roads also account for most of the country’s 80-plus accident hotspots.
Tiredness causes around a quarter of all fatal and serious road accidents, with tiredness-related crashes
most likely to occur on long journeys on monotonous roads or highways, according to The Royal Society
for the Prevention of Accidents in the UK. Stopping the vehicle in a safe place, drinking a caffeinated
drink, and taking a short nap are the only ways to relieve dangerous levels of tiredness while driving, the
society reports. “Drivers need to be well-rested and refreshed, to be vigilant, alert, and safe,” said Derrick Ngokonyo, the Naivasha Safari Centre Manager.
The Naivasha Safari Centre is anchored by supermarket Naivas and a wide range of eateries, including ArtCaffe, Chicken Inn, Creamy Inn, Galitos, and Pizza Inn. It also offers a car wash, pharmacy, children’s play areas, and events, as well as an entirely new kind of designer-rest room, under Dowgate’s high-tech rest-room brand, Loo4U, a petrol station, curio shops, and a Dr. Mattress store. Naivas has opened the Safari Centre with plans to service some of the 400,000 local shoppers in and around Naivasha, as well as the estimated 200,000 travelers a month who are expected to stop at the service center.
The Safari Centre is the first of many, now at various stages of construction by Dowgate Properties, with
the next due to be built on the Nairobi to Nyeri road at Makutano in Kirinyaga. With further electric
charging stations at Makutano, the developer’s second center will ensure it is possible to travel from
Nairobi to the Mount Kenya region by electric vehicle.
