Up to 10,000 buses to become cashless with O-CITY’s M-Pesa-based ticketing solution

O-CITY, the automated fare collection provider by BPC, today announces its initiative to drive contactless payments across bus services in Nairobi, Kenya. The O-CITY pilot, designed to reduce the use of cash in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was launched in partnership with transport savings and credit specialists, NikoDigi, and Kenyan payments firm, Tracom, to accelerate the deployment of cashless fare collection.

Used by 70% of the population in Kenya, Matatu buses are a dominant transport mode across the country whereby passengers traditionally pay in cash. O-CITY’s automated fare collection platform leverages the M-Pesa mobile wallet, which is used by 90% of the population in Kenya. Passengers enter a code on their phone and a debit is made on their wallet, which can be instantly seen by drivers to grant access to ride. The platform removes unnecessary tickets and cash payments, instead offering an accessible payment solution that consumers already use, via a device already in their hand.

O-CITY’s platform is also built to make fare collection more transparent between the bus owners and drivers. Buses and routes are privately owned by several operators who ‘lease’ to drivers who must meet daily financial fare targets, before generating their own earnings. Fare pricing differs depending on the route and a range of factors, so digitising the transactions enables visibility and reliability of fare data. With heavily congested routes in Nairobi, digitising fare collection also serves to remove the friction of exchanging money and time taken for drivers to pick up passengers.

An important part of O-CITY’s pilot is an educational campaign to get the bus owners and drivers on board to become champions on the service. With teams on the ground at drop off points promoting the benefits of the service, buses and drivers can enrol in as little as 10 minutes. Local marketing on buses also promotes the ability to pay digitally to passengers.

Patrick Karera, MD at Nikodigi: “Having provided savings and credit management solutions for both the Matatu and Boda Boda (motorbike taxi) sectors, Nikodigi understands the needs of vehicle owners and drivers. Together with our partners, we have designed a product that automates fare collection without taking control away from the drivers and conductors or radically changing how they operate. We dubbed the solution “Lipafare” meaning ‘pay fare’. The platform has been embraced by passengers because of its ease of use, but also because it eliminates cash transactions during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Tokhir Abdukadyrov, SVP of smart city and transport solutions at BPC: “A mobile money revolution has been happening in Kenya with the ubiquity and success of M-Pesa. The move away from cash to contactless public transport is an important part of this movement. At O-CITY, we know that innovation does not always require new technologies, but instead new ways of performing a task. By connecting our O-CITY platform to mobile wallet M-Pesa, we’re able to build a simple contactless fare solution that is familiar to the customer and likely to encourage adoption. Moreover, it enables us to scale fast to rollout the service at a time when cashless payments have a newfound importance.”