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Get it on Google PlayTsamaya · Route model
--:-- SAST · Live ratingsRated by the hour
14 metros · 5 015 rated areas · 3 time bands
Illustrative city
Tsamaya (say: tsa-MAH-ya) ·
Sesotho and Setswana for go
Go where
the trouble
isn't.
Tsamaya checks your route against 5 015 rated areas in 14 South African metros, at the hour you drive, and bends it around the high-risk ones.
Lower risk is not no risk. Free, in open beta on Android and iPhone.
Standard route
Grade E · 49 min · 42.4 km
Passes 4 high-risk areas.
Balanced, lower-risk
Grade B · 47 min · 52.3 km
Passes 1 medium-risk area, for 0.1 km.
99% less risk than the standard route.
01 / The bend
Two minutes quicker. Four fewer high-risk areas.
- 01
Standard: grade E, 49 min, 42.4 km. It passes 4 high-risk areas.
- 02
Tsamaya tests it against every rated area, with this hour's ratings, and starts re-routing.
- 03
Balanced, lower-risk: grade B, 47 min, 52.3 km. It takes the freeway instead and passes 1 medium-risk area, for 0.1 km.
- 04
You drive it, and the app tells you what it went around.
high-risk areasFrom 4 high-risk areas down to none.
99% less risk than the standard route. 9.8 km further, and 2 minutes quicker in that morning's traffic.
Numbers from a real route card in the app, 2026/09/25.
02 / Three clocks
Same city. Three sets of ratings.
Tsamaya reads the clock and routes against the one that applies right now. There is no switch to forget.
- Daytime 05:00 to 17:301 394
- Evening 17:30 to 19:301 585
- Night 19:30 to 05:002 689
03 / Fourteen metros
14 metros. 5 015 rated areas.
Everywhere else it is a normal navigator.
- Cape Town909 rated areas
- Johannesburg800 rated areas
- Durban791 rated areas
- Ekurhuleni732 rated areas
- Pretoria486 rated areas
- Kruger & Lowveld445 rated areas
Pillar height and dot size show how many rated areas each metro has. That is coverage, not risk.
04 / Explore
Explore the 14 metros
Point at a metro to light it up, or pick one to fly in.Each metro has its own page, with its figures for every time band.
Pillar height shows how many rated areas a metro has. The ring shows how many are rated high risk in the band you pick. Nothing here is finer than a whole metro.
- Cape Town909 rated areas
- Johannesburg800 rated areas
- Durban791 rated areas
- Ekurhuleni732 rated areas
- Pretoria486 rated areas
- Kruger & Lowveld445 rated areas
- Gqeberha254 rated areas
- Bloemfontein174 rated areas
- West Rand130 rated areas
- Rustenburg98 rated areas
- Secunda63 rated areas
- Mossel Bay58 rated areas
- Pilanesberg43 rated areas
- Stellenbosch32 rated areas
Cape TownWestern Cape
909 rated areas
Rated high risk, by time band
- Daytime
280 - Evening
296 - Night
587
Bar scale: all 909 rated areas
Inside the app
What happens after you tap Go
- 01
Pick where you're going
Search, tap the map, or press and hold to drop a pin.
- 02
Test the quickest route
Tsamaya takes the quickest route and tests it against every rated area, using the ratings for this hour.
- 03
Move it onto checked roads
If the route runs through a high-risk area, it moves it onto roads we have checked, and tells you what it went around.
- 04
Throw out bad detours
A detour only gets offered if it cuts your exposure. One that adds too much distance is thrown out, even when it carries less risk.
- 05
Say so when there's no better way
When there is no good alternative, Tsamaya says so and gives you the normal route with the risky stretches marked. It will not invent a detour to look busy.
- 06
Drive it
Turn-by-turn with voice, on the phone or Apple CarPlay (Android Auto is in testing). Or hand it to Google Maps with the detour points already in place.
Also in the app
- Three options
- Fastest, Balanced and Lower-risk, each with an A to E grade.
- Stops
- Add up to four stops to a trip. Each leg is risk-checked on its own, and each stop is announced by name.
- Live overlay
- Turn it on to see every rated area and road, colour-coded.
- SOS
- One button on the phone's drive screen calls 10111 or 112, or opens a text to your emergency contact, ready to send, with where you are and a link that follows you live while you drive and stays up for 24 hours.
- Share a trip
- Send someone a link and they follow your drive live in any browser, down to an Arrived screen. They need no app.
- Driver notices
- Police and roadblock notices from other drivers, shown for an hour and spoken when they are ahead. They never change your route.
- Speed cameras
- Known fixed speed cameras show on the map with a spoken heads-up. Drivers can report permanent cameras and camera vans. It is a list of the cameras we know about, not a complete one.
- Hotspots
- Reported hijacking and smash-and-grab spots show on the map, with a spoken heads-up as you approach one. They are awareness only and never change your route.
- Report as you drive
- Tap Report, or say it: police, roadblock, speed camera or crash. It works on the phone and on the car screen, with a few seconds to Undo.
- Closures
- Road closures and protest reports are picked up daily, and the Balanced and Lower-risk routes go around them where there is a way round.
- Before dark
- The route card warns when a trip will arrive after dark, and when time is tight, how soon to leave to arrive in daylight.
- Offline maps
- Download the map for an area so it keeps drawing where the signal drops.
- Discover
- A guided flyover of your metro, landmark to landmark, with a quick guide at each stop. Landmarks never change your route.
- CarPlay
- The same routes, voice guidance and alerts on the car's own screen. Android Auto is in testing.
- Speed
- A speed limit readout and a gentle over-speed chime.
- Report a corner
- Tell us where we got it wrong, from inside the app.
- Outside the metros
- An ordinary map and navigator. It just has no risk data there.
Coverage
14 metros, rated area by area
These are the places with ratings. Everywhere else Tsamaya still works as a normal map and navigator, without risk data.
5 015Rated risk areas
2 281Checked road stretches
5 091Flagged road stretches
3Time bands
| Metro | Areas | Relative size |
|---|---|---|
| Cape Town | 909 | |
| Johannesburg | 800 | |
| Durban | 791 | |
| Ekurhuleni | 732 | |
| Pretoria | 486 | |
| Kruger & Lowveld | 445 | |
| Gqeberha | 254 |
| Metro | Areas | Relative size |
|---|---|---|
| Bloemfontein | 174 | |
| West Rand | 130 | |
| Rustenburg | 98 | |
| Secunda | 63 | |
| Mossel Bay | 58 | |
| Pilanesberg | 43 | |
| Stellenbosch | 32 |
Where the ratings come from
Published South African crime statistics, scored against OpenStreetMap road data to find where vehicle crime concentrates. Every metro gets an AI review and a person's sense-check before anything goes live, and drivers' reports refine it from there.
Rated by the hour
Every area carries three ratings: daytime 05:00 to 17:30, evening 17:30 to 19:30 and night 19:30 to 05:00. Yellow means caution: it is shown on the map but never forces a detour.
Questions
Straight answers
Tsamaya is a free navigation app for South African drivers, built in Johannesburg. It plans driving routes around the places where vehicle crime is known to happen, using ratings that change with the time of day, then guides you turn by turn on your phone or on Apple CarPlay, with Android Auto in testing. It also has an SOS button and live trip sharing. It is in open beta on iPhone and Android.
Published South African crime statistics, scored against map data to work out where vehicle crime concentrates. An AI review gives a second opinion on the ratings, and a person sense-checks the results, looking closely at any that stand out. After that, drivers' reports refine the map: a person reads each one before anything changes, so local knowledge keeps improving it.
Tsamaya currently maps 14 metros: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Ekurhuleni, West Rand, Secunda, Stellenbosch, Rustenburg, Pilanesberg, Mossel Bay, Durban, Gqeberha, Kruger & Lowveld, Bloemfontein. Outside those areas it still works as an ordinary map and turn-by-turn navigator; it just has no risk data to apply.
Usually a few minutes. A detour is only offered when it cuts your exposure, and anything dramatically longer than the direct route is rejected outright.
Yes. The SOS button on the phone's drive screen calls 10111 (the police) or 112 (any mobile), or opens a text to your emergency contact, ready to send, with your coordinates and a link that follows you live while you drive and stays up for 24 hours. In the current release the button is not shown while a drive is on CarPlay; from version 1.8, in testing now, it stays on the phone during a CarPlay drive and the car map gets its own SOS button. Tsamaya does not send armed response or an ambulance itself, so keep a dedicated emergency app as well, such as the panic button your insurer, bank or security company offers.
Yes. Share a trip and they get a link that opens in any browser, with no app to install: your route, where you are now, your arrival time, and an Arrived screen when you get there. If you drive with CarPlay, Guardian keeps one standing link for your emergency contact, and switching it on from the car screen starts sharing to it.
Yes, if you will be driving. There is no account to create, it works in any car including a rental, and it covers the places most visitors drive: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Stellenbosch, Durban, the Kruger National Park area, Pilanesberg and Mossel Bay on the Garden Route. People at home can follow your drives in a browser. A visitor's guide to driving here.
Yes. Everything that routes you around risk, the SOS button and trip sharing included, is free and stays free. It is paid for out of pocket, with help from anyone who chips in. There are no ads, and we do not sell anything about you.
No, and we will never tell you otherwise. Tsamaya cuts your exposure to areas with a history of vehicle crime. Crime is not predictable, and no route is safe. Treat it as better information for the choice you were going to make anyway, and stay alert.
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Free, and in open beta now.
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Join on TestFlightHelp
Help it get better
Tsamaya is independent and self-funded. The most useful help costs nothing.
Free
- 01Drive with it.
- 02Tell one other driver.
- 03Report a corner we got wrong.
- 04Tell us when it annoys you.
Money, if you want to
Optional and once-off, by EFT. There are no tiers; this is what an amount does.
- R 100
- Goes into running costs: map tiles, geocoding, the database.
- R 1 000
- And we will ask which metro you want next.
- R 2 500
- Sponsors a whole new city.