Residents in Thimphu, intending to travel to other parts of the country now have an option to make bus ticket reservations online. The credit for all this goes to the online service called as “Druk Ride” which was launched in the capital, yesterday.
To avail the service, users can visit the website-www.drukride.com. Once they access the web page, they need to provide details about the present location to the place they want to travel.
A travel date must also be provided. Then, the website will give the users information about bus departure timings and seats availability. Upon confirmation, the users will receive a message. The users will have to produce the message and the identity card at the ticket counter to get on the bus.
The payment for the online ticket booking can be done only through the mobile app of Bank of Bhutan, M-BoB.
The founder of the online ticket booking system, Jigme T.Y.Rinzin said the virtual means of booking a bus ticket came into being after his friend faced difficulty in booking the ticket manually.
“The idea basically started when my friend, he didn’t have an option to book a bus ticket, and he asked me is it possible that I can book a bus ticket for him? So it hit me hard to come up with something easy and that’s how the online booking service came up”.
In a broader perspective, the idea of making the service online is to use technology towards promoting sustainable development and environmental conservation.
“It would save time, environment and car fuel, and there are other many advantages. Just to buy a bus ticket they don’t have to burn their fuel and come to the station, with the click of a button, your tickets get booked and I hope this will have greater impact for the country in the small manner”.
For now, the online booking service is available only for one public transport service provider. Jigme plans to make it available for all such providers. He is also working on developing a mobile app for the service.
Druk Ride was developed with the help of Bhutan Innovation and Technology Centre at the Tech Park. So far, through their business incubator center, they have supported 11 different business start-ups by Bhutanese youth.
“The reason why the business incubator was set up was because of need for our country to promote entrepreneurship in order to create more jobs, and also to strengthen Bhutanese economy entrepreneurship. After the business incubator was set up, lot of young people came up with new ideas and they tried to implement the ideas with the help of the business incubator here,” said the Chief Executive Officer of Thimphu TechPark, Tshering Cigay Dorji.
The Bhutan Innovation and Technology Centre was setup in 2012 with support from the World Bank.
