Philippine startup Pinoy Travel helps travellers book their bus tickets online

Only months after taxi e-hailing apps landed in the Philippines, now comes Pinoy Travel, an online provincial bus booking service.

A few prime destinations in the Philippines are accessible by bus. For example, in Luzon, people from Metro Manila can go to Baguio, Vigan and Zambales.

It’s also common for Filipinos to visit relatives in the provinces on holidays like Christmas. And that’s when ticket booths tend to have long queues, and buses get jammed with passengers.

Moving ticket-booking to the web

Enter Pinoy Travel, which aggregates the schedules of all the different bus fleets in the Philippines. Users simply choose their preferred schedule and bus line, and book the ticket from there. However, as the app is still in its early stages, it’s working on integrating some of the bus lines’ online payments into its system.

By moving ticket-booking to the web, Pinoy aims “to revolutionize the provincial bus booking system in the country,” says Au Soriano, president and co-founder of PinoyTravel.

Pinoy Travel was part of the first batch of startups mentored by Ideaspace Foundation, an incubator organization by Philippine telco Smart Communications

In a nation where tickets for transportation are not usually purchased online, Pinoy Travel’s website is surely is a game-changer.

Pinoy Travel can be accessed through its web app, and is available for free on Android.

(Editing by Josh Horwitz)