Shuttle Drive

Shuttle Drive is an online platform(Web application & USSD) that helps commuters book buses for their long distance trips across West Africa

Shuttle Drive helps commuters book a bus for their trips from a region to another another region in a country or a country to another country all within West Africa. It uses a web application or USSD over a telecommunication network to book trips, make payments and deliver invoices and receipts to commuters using just a smartphone or telephone. The SD team are equipped with the appropriate digital devices and skills for us to fast track bus or ticket request made by our customers called Shuttle Buddies and ensure the service is delivered in a timely and professional manner.

The inability of commuters to get buses for their long distance trips with ease therefore making them waste a lot of time in queues and money.

This problem is really huge because most of the people in Africa are lower to middle class who can only travel by bus. The number of people affected by this problem are over 90,000,000 people all living in Africa. 

The reason for this problem is that there's no integrated system that helps the people book buses for their trips easily. And for those private bus companies who have built websites to help ease the problem, their websites are usually not user friendly, not known or most times don't offer people choices conveniently and so in case someone is going to travel to a region, he or she would still need to go through the Hussle of looking for a bus that goes to the person's destination by actually going round visiting bus stations by bus stations.

Some of the consequences of this problem is that people end up wasting time and money before the actual trip begins, they can also get duped by the street guys who realise they are ignorant and so end up exploiting them before showing the way to go and sometimes they can go as far as sending the person to an unknown environment to commit the worse kind of crimes.

Our target market are 18-45 years old females and makes or organizations who love to travel on long distance trips and have access to a mobile phone and would prefer using a bus for such trips.

They are currently underserved because they have to go through a lot of stress just to get a bus for their trips to continue their days target and the transportation industry(private and public) are not really helping them to ease their burden and risks they are exposed to get a bus or ticket for their trips.

Shuttle Drive would easily address their needs by being able to provide an online system or platform that would provide all the bus related services(bus ticketing or booking, choice of various bus companies travelling to various parts of West Africa, routes and stops, among others) they would need to have a memorable trip by bus

The steps we took to fully understand the problem of bus booking and ticketing in Africa, is that we carried out surveys both online and offline with tourists and travellers who use buses, drivers and station masters where results showed people would really appreciate a bus system which would ease up their stress for booking buses to their hometowns or villages especially during festive seasons. 

The founding member also worked with a startup accelerator organization to help put the ideas and results gotten together for proper implementation

We created our MVP being a landing page which was sent to be tried and tested to help understand the reaction and customer experience of the affected stakeholder to the online system

Shuttle Drive is at the Prototype stage because currently we are still developing the website and tests are being carried out on it to be able to create it to suit our end users and also yet to acquire a USSD though we are currently using our MVP being our social media handles and a phone number to make bus bookings and the receipts being sent via email or any social media handles provided by our commuters.

Shuttle Drive makes use of an existing technology in carrying out their operations being a web application where commuters are able to book their buses online.

Also the Shuttle Drive implementation team makes use of applications in the daily work operations such as Notion for the work schedule and communication, Canva, Photoshop and Inshor for our digital communications, among other online working tools 

Currently Shuttle Drive serves 200 people monthly in Ghana and aims to serve 10,000 commuters across West Africa in the next 2 years

The impact goals of Shuttle Drive for next year is employment opportunities creation for at least 1,000 youth especially women in West Africa to build confidence more for the women to work in a transportation industry. 

Reduce poverty rate in West Africa especially Ghana by 3% for next year

Ensure and promote the safety and health of people especially commuters 

Empowering at least 1,000 youth in Ghana through employment, trainings and development next year

Some of our progress measurements are:

1. When we are able to form partnerships with at least 5 bus companies for the economic development of Ghana

2. When we have been able to empower 1, 000 youth in Ghana next year

3. When Ghana has been considered advanced in using technology to control their transportation and fleet Management problems

1. Information being revealed to competitors.

2.  Society's reluctance to change or new methods introduced

3. Delay in deal closure with bus companies as partners or large organization coming in as client organizations

SD is made up of very young and energetic team who are very passionate about 
solving the problems related to transportation especially about the shuttle systems 
in Ghana and other west African countries. We are currently working part time 
for some multi national and local firms with the specific roles we each play in SD 
and have a collective of 15 years working experience and we are Victoria Selorm 
Apedoh (Founder and CEO), Gilbert Sepenu (General Manager), Sheila Naa 
Ayorkor (administrator), and Julius Larry Asamoah CTO (Chief Technical Officer)
officer)

My current partners are some privately owned vehicle rental companies, public bus transportation association in Ghana that travels the route of Greater Accra region, Oti region, Central region, Volta region and Northern region.

I am qualified for the HP Girls Save the World Prize because I am a female who is passionate about helping solve problems related to the World and especially under the transportation system which is one predominant problem and also I am able to influence other females in becoming the best version of themselves easily and because currently I am the Vice president of my society and I have been able to help more females in the society in women empowerment programs like skill training in makeup and some other vocational skills which has gone a long way to reduce their depedence on their family.

So the HP Girl Save the World Prize would help my team to be able to get and convince more ladies to feel comfortable working in a transport industry as technical support, customer service, among other departments and also give us more credibility to be able to advance and accelerate the operations of Shuttle Drive easily through other countries.

I am qualified for the prize because currently Shuttle Drive is a social innovation project. In the sense that Shuttle Drive is aiding the society in solving an existing problem and process but by using an advanced innovation process which is a web application and USSD. 

With the prize, our team can be able to scale operations through trainings to be offered, be able to use financial support to carry out operations for at least a year's operations seamlessly