Easy Ticketing System

A bus ticketing agency from Africa approached us seeking help in improving the sale of bus tickets.

The bus agency connects over 32 cities within the country and is one of the pioneers in their industry. But due to a lack of internet knowledge among the people in that part of the country, the agency couldn’t improve their sales percentage.

Given the technological boom, bus ticketing agencies have all gone completely online but a lack of internet awareness among the people was a major drawback for us. This simply meant the necessity to explore other platforms rather than just internet.

We conducted effective anthropological studies to understand the human behavior pattern and their technical exposure to different technological devices and platforms, getting us closer to identifying the most strategically significant platform for ticketing.

From the studies conducted and the research findings, we decided to build 4 different platforms based on the end audience whom we thought might use it the most.

1. USSD system (for end users)

2. Web platform to book the tickets (for both end users and agents)

3. Android & an iOS app to book the tickets (for both end users and agents)

4. Ticketing machine (for agents)

Based on the information collected, we found that most people had access to their mobile phones than any other means and decided the best way to improve the ticket booking ratio is by tapping the mobile phone networks through USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data).

Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), is a protocol used by the GSM cellular telephones to communicate with the service provider’s computers. USSD helps in establishing a real-time communication by keeping the connection open unlike SMS (Short Message Service), thereby encouraging a proficient two-way communication.

In the designed USSD system, the users can dial a USSD code like *111# and after 5 easy steps, the ticket will be booked. The cost of the ticket will be deducted from the mobile balance. When a user enters any input to the phone company network, it is received by a computer dedicated to USSD. The computer then sends a response back to the phone, generally in a basic format that can easily be seen on the phone display. Through the USSD system, the problem in accessing the internet was rectified.

We came up with two different platform based systems: web and mobile for those, who were aware of the internet functionalities. For mobile, we designed an android and iOS application that allows the users to select their own seats and enter their corresponding pickup & drop location. For the web, it was the same functionalities as of the mobile but on a larger scale considering the pixels and the usability. Both the platforms satisfied not only the end users but the ticketing agents too. In addition to this, a ticketing machine to agents was also delivered.

The option of a USSD proved really easy and an effective way of booking bus tickets without even accessing the internet. Additional options of other platforms were an added advantage for the end users and ticketing agents.