Bus Tickets Booking

We are helping people get rid of the waiting

by booking tickets before they arrive at the bus stops and stations.

Our solution is a bus ticket booking system that will allow people to check the available seats in buses and book them before they arrive at the station. In Kigali (Rwanda), where I am from, most commuters roughly spend at least one and a half hours waiting for a bus. It does not only irritate them but also hurts their productivity and reduces the hours they could spend with their families.

Through our mobile application, people will predict the time they can catch a bus and avoid waiting. The application will track buses to know their locations and use IoT and AI to provide the number of available sits. That data will therefore be uploaded on the App where people can view and book accordingly. The data will automatically change once people have booked or the location/sits of the bus have changed.

Obviously, the data collected (for example, the number of people who use a certain line at a certain period) will help bus agencies allocate buses efficiently. 

Kigali is a city of about 2 million people whereby more than 70% percent of the population uses public transportation. the city has established a public bus transportation system through which buses are allocated to drive in specific routes everyday.

The problem is that commuters cannot predict when they can get a sit on the bus. They have to wait in the queues for hours (maximum average is 64 min and minimum average is 30 minutes according to a survey of 100 Kigali city commuters I conducted). This problem has persisted no matter how the government tried to increase the number of buses in the city.

However, this can change if people are shared the knowledge of where buses are and when they can reach them with tickets bought beforehand. this solution can also work in booking tickets for buses traveling to rural areas. Usually, people go to the agencies' offices to buy them which is time-consuming. Also, the solution can be implemented in many other African cities since the situation is not unique to Rwanda.

The target population is commuters who use public transportation such as the bus(we are starting from Kigali city, but planning to go to other cities and countries as we grow).

The unavailability of information about when one should expect to find a seat/place in a bus(any other transportation mean) makes people queue at bus stops while they could be doing other tasks. People can wait up to 60 minutes or 2 hours if it is busy hours. They claim that this wasted time is what they could have used to interact with their families or complete their tasks as the problem makes it hard to not be late for work.

We believe we will tackle this problem by giving people the information of where buses(with sits) are and when they can reach them. That information will therefore help them know which seat to book and predict when they can go to the station with confidence that they will not wait. In other words, instead of waiting at the bus stops, people will continue doing their work and leave once they can get a seat. Thus, they will be able to book in advance and leave early to see their families before it is too late or reach work on time.

We have talked to the target users. Throughout the few past months, we conducted a survey of 100 commuters at different bus stops in Kigali city. We asked them how they feel about the problem and what they think could be done to solve it.

They stressed how much the problem irritates them and hurts their work and relationships. They suggested that the government or bus Agencies should increase the number of buses, but that has been done before and it does not seem to do anything in solving the problem other than causing traffic. For example, in 2020, KBS (bus agency in Rwanda) added 20 more busses in Kigali city and nothing about the queues has changed.

On the other hand, when you look at other countries (such as South Africa) that have implemented a similar solution, you see a significant improvement.

Our solution is trying to make it easy for people to travel to work and school every day. 

It is important because traveling is an essential part of our life. Especially, here in Kigali where working from home does not fit, people depend on public transportation to be productive. Also, by making public transportation convenient, the need of using a private car is reduced which is good for the environment.

The idea was generated in 2020 and we have been testing it out by doing research on the problem, possible solutions, and targeted users' perspectives.

We have participated in different pitching competitions to test out the idea from wide perspectives and have gotten positive feedback and great criticism.

Now, we are building the product. However, because it is expensive and various resources are needed, we are looking for award funds.

Our solution uses AI, GPS, and IoT to tell the available sits and bus' location.

That data is therefore uploaded on the application(a mobile app built using several programming languages and relies on servers to store data).

We plan to serve half of a million people by next year.

Our impact goal is to smoothen public transportation by making it easy for people to move around by bus without waiting. We will achieve this goal by providing a user-friendly and accurate mobile application.

Once people are able to book the tickets and commute accordingly, our current goal will be met. However, we will continue to set higher goals as we grow.

Since we are in the early stages, progress is quite obvious. We have divided tasks to build the product and by completing every single task, we progress to the upper stage in product development. 

After developing the product, we will launch and we will move on with customer satisfaction by improving the product and adding more features. 

We will therefore work on expanding and adding more features.

We are having a funds barrier since the technologies are expensive.

However, we are applying for this award as a way to fund the business, and we shall keep trying by using all possible ways to go through it.

We are all software engineering students except for one business major. The four of us are working on the technicality of the product while the other team member is working on marketing, branding, and income generation.

We partner with an organization based in Japan called Ashinaga. They are helping us in acquiring partners and getting the necessary connections before the launch.

we would use the prize to accommodate more features in our project, especially those that raise awareness about climate change.

The transportation industry that we are focused on is closely related to the environment as it adds a lot of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. 

Once we have enough funds to launch and make public transportation comfortable for everyone, people will not find it necessary to commute in their private cars every day, therefore, minimizing the gases.

In addition to that, we are planning to add a tourism feature in the App so that people can be aware of the natural tourist sites and how they can have fun traveling there while learning about how their actions affect them. All of those are features that can add value to the information to teach people.

Our solution is an innovation in our community. Nobody has tried this out, but the point is that it will use a combination of different technologies to improve people's lives. As time is all we have in this world, wasting it hurts and that is what we are giving people. We are giving them information to smoothen their lives by making time for their families and work.