BARBADIAN COMPANY Caribbean Transit Solutions, which is focused on improving public transportation systems here and overseas, has launched a funding campaign to develop one of its main platforms.
Using the crowdfunding mechanism, which involves raising small amounts of money from a large number of people (often via the Internet), Caribbean Transit Solutions is aiming to raise funds to enhance its BeepBus product. BeepBus is an application that “enables Bajans the ease of knowing the bus schedule at their fingertips”.
In announcing the new fundraising effort, company officials said: “The campaign is one of the first of its kind in Barbados. Many Bajans wait in the sun or rain not knowing which bus or even if the next bus is coming. Tourists don’t always know where the next taxi is either. We want to change all of that.
“We started our journey with BeepBus. Our Android app and web tool enables Bajans the ease of knowing the bus schedule at their fingertips. You can even get route information for travelling across the island. We’ve got big plans to revamp our platform and customise it for our Bajan commuters and later the rest of the Caribbean.”
Company officials said the goal of the crowdfunding effort was to “add to the android and web platforms and build out the iOS version of the BeepBus App”.
They added: “We’ll build in real-time information and make improvements across both platforms.”
The campaign will run from May to June 2017.
BeepBus was developed in 2014 “because there was no unified bus schedule information available in Barbados”. In addition to information on Transport Board buses, it provides information on minibuses and route taxis. (SC)
