In the race to digitise mobility in Africa, BuuPass is doing things differently

The logistics and mobility sector accounted for 11.4 percent of the total funds raised by African startups, making it the second-highest after FinTechs.

This even as sector is experiencing a boom like never before, with mobility companies solving key challenges in the transportation value chain.

In the past year there has been innovative trends centering around ease of access through e-hailing, credit facilitation to driver- partners, inter/intra-city ride-sharing, digital infrastructure for operators and overall convenience for users.

Yet, with the proliferation of ride-hailing and logistics services that attempt to solve these key issues, mobility companies have yet to scratch the surface.

Wyclife Omondi, Co-founder of BuuPass says However, despite these developments the market is hyper fragmented and broken.

“This means that 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,” says Wyclife Omondi, Co-founder of BuuPass

Every day t is estimated that over 30 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) travel from one city to another and over 40 B dollars (Sh4.9 trillion) are spent every year on domestic travel and transport.

However according to Omondi, a combination of other challenges exist that hinder the mobility landscape from reaching its true potential.

The challenges, urban congestion, insufficient data on routes, unregulated public transit agencies and most importantly, unavailability of robust end-to-end digital infrastructure management for operators.

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 digitizing 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.”

As a mobility service provider, BuuPass aggregates key information, ranging from data, including location, time, and price, relevant for travellers and authorities to execute regulatory functions.

With over 1,000,000bus users, more than 920buses in operation and 800+ locations covered in Kenya and Uganda, BuuPass’ all-in-one platform is demonstrating its capacity to alleviate the hurdles of transport operators and at the same time facilitate the convenience of commuters.