BuuPass? No idea! But why not? BuuPass is a digital marketplace for urban travellers to book their travel tickets. It’s as simple as this. The Logistics and mobility company is simply here to to digitise mobility across Africa just so you can book your travelling ticket just by lifting a finger.
Although transit agencies are a core part of the mobility value chain, travellers often face cost ordeals and tedious booking processes.
“It takes travellers unnecessary time and money to compare platforms while trying to book tickets. With BuuPass digitalisation, both challenges are taken care of because we do not only cut costs for users or commuters, we also reduce administrative overhead for bus operators by offering a fleet and parcel management solution,” says Wyclife Omondi, one of BuuPass’s cofounders.
The logistics and mobility sector accounted for 11.4 per cent of the total funds raised by African startups in the first half (H1) of 2022, making it the second-highest after FinTech startups.
At the granular level, mobility companies solve key challenges in the transportation value chain by offering proprietary technology, which makes mobility a service of convenience and choice.
A plethora of other challenges exist that hinder the mobility landscape from reaching its true potential; urban congestion, insufficient data on routes, unregulated public transit agencies and most importantly, unavailability of robust end-to-end digital infrastructure management for operators. Now that’s WHY BuuPass has stepped in.
“Every day over 30 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) travel from one city to another and over 40B dollars are spent every year on domestic travel and transport.” says Wyclife Omondi, Cofounder of BuuPass.
He continued: “However the market is hyper fragmented and broken. This means: A single intercity bus operator with an average of 30 buses and 20 bus stops has its operator using pen and paper to manage their operations, hence causing cash leakage and a bad customer experience.”
Founded in 2016, BuuPass provides a holistic solution to both operators and end users in the mobility ecosystem. Its web platform enables long-distance transport operators to digitise and manage their services, inventory and sales, minimise cash leakages, and run seamless online bookings through its Bus Management System (BMS). It also offers affordable parcel logistics for individuals and businesses that are cost-sensitive to high prices from current logistics & shipping providers. On BuuPass, travellers are able to explore and compare different travel options and make payments with mobile money.
Armed with the mission to bridge the gap between the operators and 500m+ mobile phone users in Sub-Saharan Africa, founders Wyclife Omondi and Sonia Kabra, say “BuuPass solves key customer pain points on B2B and B2C side while building scalable infrastructure and digitising the transport industry from the grassroots. Yet, digitising mobility across Africa wouldn’t be a walk in the park, given the continent’s regional complexities.”
Currently, the platform processes over 10,000 bookings daily and looks to quadruple this number in Q1, 2023. “While the race to digitise mobility in Africa is far from over, BuuPass is one of the few solution providers attempting to ensure everyone in the value chain is catered to, one pan-African country at a time. We are different because we have something for everyone in the value chain – operators, commuters, and regulators. We are ensuring that no one is left behind.” says Kabra
