At your fingertips: Plan your public bus trip through a mobile app

Android app to inform travellers about nearest bus stops, schedule of buses.

LAHORE: Who knew spending lunch money on a rickshaw ride will inspire a group of students to develop a mobile application that would enable citizens to access public transport information, including a route planner and the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of buses.

Called ‘Travly’, the free android app aims to offer public transport commuters access to information about the closest bus stop, which buses to board to go to a particular destination and the bus schedule.



Shahmir Khan, CEO of 404 Solutions - which has produced Travly, says the inspiration for the app came from having to spend Rs250 on a rickshaw ride while returning from university. “I could not get a ride from one of my friends with whom I used to travel to get back home. So I decided to take a bus,” he recalls. “There was no sign of the bus even after 30 minutes. I wanted to find a solution to the uncertainty regarding the arrival of the next bus,” says Khan.

The idea was also taken up as their final year project when the team pursued their software engineering at the Beaconhouse National University. Later, all five members - Faizan Khan, Muhammad Mehmood Ali, Muhammad Zohaib, Talaal Burny and Shahmir Khan - came together to work more on the idea and develop an app. “We were very passionate about the idea,” he said.

“The app, which has initially been launched in Lahore, planned to be introduced in other cities as well,” says Khan.

The team conducted a market research which included visiting bus stops and a survey to validate the need for the idea. According their research, an average Pakistani commuter spends approximately 15 days per year waiting at a bus stop.

They also claim that 73 per cent of Pakistanis do not use public transport because they are unaware of bus stops, bus routes or are unsure when the bus will arrive. “Our beta version also received an overwhelming response which indicates there is a need to develop and work on such ideas,” says Khan. The app asks the user where they are and where they wish to travel and then lists the closest bus stops and plans a route for the trip. Other features include cost of the trip and the expected time of arrival (ETA) of buses - something the team is still working on.



In November, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Travly and the Lahore Transport Company (LTC) to digitise all public transport routes through dissemination services and a system to calculate ETAs of buses. “Around 20 routes have been digitised so far. There are more than 30 routes for LTC urban buses. The app developers aspire to reach out initially to around 100,000 commuters through their services,” he said.

But do all public transport users possess smart phones? Khan says their survey indicates that 15 per cent of all public transport commuters use smart phones.

He added that they planned to extend their services to a web application as well as start an SMS service.

“We realise the limitation in terms of smart phone users, but we are also working on expanding through other systems because commuters do have mobile phones, even if they be the simplest ones,” he said.

The team is also working on developing the idea further to include booking a rickshaw, taxi or a bus ticket from home. The team plans to expand it to other cities as well.

After having developed the idea further during various technology incubators, the team is now all set to represent Pakistan in Bangalore at the Challenge Cup - part of a start-up global competition that takes place in 11 countries across the globe.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2014.