The online marketplace ticketing system, QuickBus, has announced expansion across Nigeria with a bid to offer seamless travel across the country.
In Africa most of the population travel by road. Nigeria’s busiest airport only recorded 4.25 million domestic travelers in 2018 – less than 5% of the population, emphasizing the popularity of road travel. Despite this, travelling across Nigerian states by road is primarily a manual process. Young men at bus parks in popular cities like Lagos and Aba try to convince passengers to choose one transport company or the other, with passengers needing to decide on the spot. It’s a stressful process for customers and leaves transport companies without essential data points to offer better experiences
QuickBus is fixing that by creating a process that works for customers and transporters alike. The platform offers a ticketing service that lets customers buy tickets, book seats online, and with options for different Operators in the space, so passengers can choose which works best for them. When you book a trip on QuickBus, you will soon get the added benefit of sharing your trip with your loved ones. This way, they can track your bus in real-time while you travel, providing that extra layer of peace of mind that’s hard to put money on.
According to Olumide Akinsola, the company’s Group VP of Growth and Marketing, “Our goal is to get Africans moving from City to City by road in a way that’s stress-free, efficient, and enjoyable. This can’t happen without transport operators moving from their current informal setup to a point where they scale with intelligent business solutions. It’s not just a promise; it’s the new reality for our customers in Kenya, Angola, Uganda, Zambia, and our other locations.”
While a few transport companies now have websites that allow customers to book seats, it remains a tricky experience. It’s common for customers to book seats online and arrive at the bus terminal on their travel date only to be told that their seats have been taken. It feels like these companies have tacked on online booking only as afterthoughts. They don’t consider digital integration as part of the customer experience, and this is one problem QuickBus is going to solve, by providing booking channels such as USSD, WhatsApp, and Agency Banking.
In Nigeria, the transportation business is tricky, with many transporters closing operations in under three years. Finding customers, ensuring a great user experience, preventing theft, and staying competitive are challenging responsibilities to juggle. Many operators know that the transport business, which is still primarily analogue, needs to change, and QuickBus provides these operators with a route to ensure they get business intelligence from their operations, which adds value to their business.
The startup has a presence in Kenya, Angola, South Africa, and Uganda, and is now the most popular site for booking buses in Africa.