After the launch event for the Smart Mobility Lab it was the perfect time for me to step out and walk around; to get a feel for the bus system. I started from the Norrsken building. My target destination was Nyabugogo, one of the biggest bus stations in Kigali where many buses also go to our cities. The trip took me three hours and helped me a lot to understand the city and its public transport better: the congestion on the big roads; the unpaved, steep, sandy streets where no bus can go; the smiling people and waving kids in the suburbs.
When I arrived at Nyabugogo, it was of course very crowded, and people wait in long queues for buses. You have to ask drivers in order to know where they travel. I needed to buy a Tap&Go card first in order to pay the bus, so I asked a formal looking person who kindly helped me to buy the card and fill it with credit.
It was impressive to see. Tap&Go chargers sat on higher tables charging the cards for many people. There is also a machine where I then could check my balance.
Still, I did not know where to take the bus back to Kigali downtown, but people directed me to the right place. However, no bus came. I was asked very often by mototaxis (motorcycle taxis) if I wouldn’t like to use a moto. I was determined to use the bus, of course, so I asked different people until I found Kassim who was on the same way like me. Luckily, he is a translator for English, French an Kinjaruanda, which made the whole trip easy.
While we sat in the bus, some 15 minutes later, I opened our app for Kigali (still in beta) that already shows buses. At first I thought that I actually saw my bus live in the app. But then the icon moved – and our bus was standing. At that moment, we had been overtaken by a different bus from Kigali Bus Services (KBS). So I knew that other bus was tracked and visible on our app.
This was, of course, very encouraging, to see the results of the work done by our partner Enrouteq who had installed the GPS devices.
Doing this ground work, making our shoes dirty, is so important for us at Trufi. If we want to understand the demands of people, we should not merely collect the information in office workshops. Today it helped me to see that bus stops are not yet visible; that you don’t know when the bus is coming. And I know why moto taxis are tempting for those have the money to use them. And I know that our app can solve this.