Tech
Booking the nearest bike instead of waiting in the sun
Muhammad Abdullahi Kutigi, a Computer Science student at Federal University Birnin Kebbi, wants to build a booking system that connects passengers in his locality, where he says he waits more than 10 minutes for a commercial bike, with the nearest available bike, bus or taxi.
"I stand under the sun for more than 10 minutes before seeing a commercial bike," Muhammad Abdullahi Kutigi says. Where he lives there are no bus stops where buses or bikes wait to pick up passengers, so riders and drivers miss each other.
He is a 200 level Computer Science student at Federal University Birnin Kebbi. He says he was taught to find and fix problems using technology, and transportation is the one he wants to fix where he lives.
“The problem is not that there are no motorcycles, but the passengers don’t know where to see them and the bike men don’t know where to locate the passengers”
Muhammad Abdullahi Kutigi
The plan is an app he calls the Commercial Transport Booking System. A passenger books a bike from their location to their destination, the software calculates the cost, and the passenger pays by bank transfer or cash. The nearest available bike, bus or taxi is alerted and comes to pick them up. Drivers, in turn, can find a passenger "without burning fuel searching for one," he says.
For now it is a plan.
He has built other things. "While studying, I’ve built several websites for Nigerian businesses all alone," he says. He also has a Food Ordering App in mind, for customers ordering from their favourite restaurants.
He does his assignments and research on the free Wi-Fi at school, which is 15 kilometres from where he lives. He lost his dad seven years ago, and his mother, a tailor, struggles to cover tuition, he says.
The booking app is the one he keeps coming back to. "With this, people will no longer stand under the sun waiting for a bike," he says.