NaijaTalkTalk- Putting 2000 Bus Operators In Africa Online – Kanayo Ejiofor

Afrobus.com

What RedBus.in has done in India, Afrobus.com will do in Africa.RebBus.in is an Inter-city bus ticketing online platform with:

• Over 2000 bus operators,
• 70,000 routes in India,
• 60,000,000 millions trips served,
• 6 million happy customers and counting.

RedBus was purchased for $130 million+ June 2013 by Ibibo Group, a joint venture by the South African Multinational Company, Naspers.
Back to Africa:
Our thinking is that the RedBus success above can be replicated in Africa, if the context problems can be identified and solved effectively.

• Africa has over 2000 bus operators.
• Who own from 5 to 4000 buses each,
• with revenues between 500K to 100M Usd each.
• a very fragmented market with a variety of offerings from many operators.
• With an avg ticket price is $15 Usd,
• And over 1 Billion trips happening in Africa Annually.
• In countries like Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, etc, collectively.
• A trip could be Lagos to Abuja, Nairobi to Mombasa, Johannesburg to Cape Town, etc.

The problems:
Travelers have to manually walk the parks to be able to purchase bus tickets.

• This makes is it difficult to compare prices and quality of services between operators.
• No easy way to book tickets from home, office or work place.
• No easy way to validate official charges.
• No easy way to discover great offers, discounts and deals.

In summary, customers are not able to enjoy all the convenience travelers enjoy by booking flights online.

Bus operators are also:

• unable to predict demand and hence use their buses efficiently.
• There are revenues loses via pilfering and theft by managers, where a manger loads 15 buses and reports 10.
• In ability to track vehicles via gps for security and accounting bases.
• And so on.

A problem is half solved if we asked the right questions and we did:
For the Product

• What if there was a platform that has all the bus operators in Africa
• what if it where possible to navigate the whole market from your mobile phone?
• What if it was possible to see the most liked operators, with best prices just by scrolling through your phone.
• what if it were possible to book your trip ahead of time to enable you plan well. Without rushing to the park with hope, but certainty.
• What if it where possible to switch from the worst to best companies with a click.
• What if it where possible for travelers to search a platform, choose their best bus operator, select their seat and pay with credits cards, mobile money services or agents in every market in Africa.
• what if it where possible to receive an sms which you present to the bus operator on your travel day. No printing.
• What if it where possible to put all the bus operators in Africa online.

Introducing www.Afrobus.com
For the Operators

• What if we automated their operations and built a website and booking machine for all the operators in the market?
• What if we helped operators track their vehicles in real time?
• What if we automated every process hence preventing losses via pilfering and operational theft.

Introducing www.Bosa.ng
For Payment

• What if it where possible to pay for your ticket either with credits cards, mobile money services or agents in every market, be it Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Etc.
• What if we set up partnerships with all the payment companies in Africa?

Low Online Transacting Percentage

• What if it where also possible buy tickets from road side business centers and cybercafes, just like Pepsi, or Coke?
• And while at it select your favorite seat, departure time and favorite bus operator?

For Adoption

• What if it where possible to guide all operators to transition from mostly unscheduled to both scheduled and unscheduled trips?
• Enabling them serve customers more effectively.

Information Source for Bus travel

• What if there was one platform that provides full insight about bus travel in for all the bus operators in Africa.

Reshaping the Industry

• What if it where possible to drive more traffic to the best performing operators hence encouraging all to do better. Thus reshaping the industry.

What if there is a team of smart people solving these problem because they can?
The questions would then be for:

• Potential hires: Why wouldn’t you join us to impact a billion lives in Africa?
• Bus Operators: Why wouldn’t you allow us automate your services to enable you grow at scale.
• Travelers: Why wouldn’t use Afrobus.com which compresses all the bus travel market offerings in a very seamless experience, while connecting you to your favorite operators at the best prices?
• Partners: why wouldn’t you join our mission to impact a billion lives in Africa and make bus travel experience great again?

And to you reading this article:
What other problems do you think will affect our mission at scale, because we are are listening.

About the Author
Kanayo Ejiofor is the founder and CEO of Afrobus.com. He has worked in Rocket Internet, Jumia Nigeria and M.I.T.