Engida Travel has unveiled Liyu Bus, a new superapp that aims to digitise intercity travel in Ethiopia by combining in-app purchases, trip management, and e-ticketing onto a single platform.
The seven-year-old Ethiopian company claimed that the new mobile platform has the potential to modernise the way intercity bus operators and passengers book travel.
The company seeks to eliminate the traditional bus industry practices of in-person booking agents, paper tickets, and bank visits.
Engida Travel’s founder, Banteab Abiy, during the launch event, declared, “No more bank branch visits.” He claimed that years of observing dissatisfaction with the current digital systems led to the development of Liyu Bus.
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Over the past four years, the company has enabled intercity bus travel services for more than 1.5 million users through its three platforms (agent, passenger, and contact).
Services offered by Liyu Bus
The newly integrated app, based on the Addispay payment gateway, enables users to purchase tickets, make in-app payments, postpone or cancel trips, and get immediate refunds.
It also provides loyalty benefits for regular travellers. About seven significant bus companies have joined the platform thus far, and more are anticipated.
According to Banteab, Engida aimed to develop an integrated system for passengers and transportation providers. The platform gives bus operators access to a dashboard with real-time earnings, route, and schedule data.
Additionally integrated are fleet management and AI-assisted route assignments, which balance driver workloads by using distance tracking.
The company has also incorporated informal ticketing agents in Ethiopia into the app’s design. Anyone who makes travel arrangements with Liyu Bus can sign up as an agent and receive commissions ranging from 50 to 250 birr per ticket.
“We wanted to include the intermediaries rather than displace them,” Banteab told Shega.
Challenges of digitisation: Ethiopia’s intercity bus system
Ethiopia’s intercity bus system has proven challenging to digitise. The industry has been sluggish in embracing digital tools, operating largely in the same manner for almost 80 years.
The largest obstacle in the four years that Engida has provided e-ticketing services, according to Banteab, has been locating a payment facilitator that complied with operational and regulatory standards.
According to industry watchers, the market has shrunk significantly in recent years. Since 2020, the number of e-ticketing services in Ethiopia has decreased from about 27 to less than five, according to Nebil Imam, general manager of IBMG Business Group, which runs Hello Bus.
According to Nebil, passengers who have trouble finding tickets or changing their travel plans are still frustrated by the manual procedures and poor system integration. “We hope this new platform will ease many of these difficulties,” he said.
Engida Travel’s partnership with Hello Bus
For the past four years, Hello Bus has collaborated with Engida to offer passenger transportation to departure locations, a service that is frequently required for late-night departures, and to reimburse clients for delays.
To establish the Liyu Bus app as a major hub for long-distance ground transportation, Engida Travel anticipates that it will eventually attract the attention of all major bus operators in Ethiopia.
Liyu Bus, which the company describes as the superapp for operators and passengers, integrates e-ticketing, trip management, and payment services.