Hi Listers,

A few days ago an was in a Kenya Bus and got a deja vu moment as I looked at the conductor standing in front of  me dispensing his ticket. 

http://quadrantshift.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/kbs-ticket-machine.jpg.

The moment tool me back to 1978 and I a sitting in a number 29 bus coming from Eastleigh, where I went to school (now you can understand my lack of etiquette at times) to Buru Buru where we lived.

To date the machine remains the same with what seems to be a very basic activity, dispensing tickets.  Which would explain why it remains the same no fancy additions or features, but what many of you might not know is that it seats at the heart of a very elaborate system.

This easily overlooked device gives Kenya Bus Management Company the wealth of information that keeps them ahead of the pack and kept them operational event after all the groups of raiders who have owned the company over the past 20 or so years, lose of their garage in Eastleigh, lose of the monopoly in Nairobi and Mombasa, lose of the sole use of the Bus Terminal in Nairobi. 

Now that little gadget that we all take for granted as we start new transport organisations is what has kept them going.  There is a product ready to be transitioned to the 21st century if only we stopped looking for opportunities for innovation in all the wrong places.

A true innovation.

Regards

PS.  I am a sower, I leave harvesting to others.
 
Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696