Improving public transport in Phnom Penh: TosJis

29 Oct 2018 2101 | Business & Trade Fairs

Khmer Times’ Sok Chan speaks with Hong Monyreach, the co-founder of local startup TosJis, a platform that promotes smart public transportation. TosJis was one of three winners in the latest round of the Toyota Impact Challenge, gaining access to a six-month incubation programme and the chance to win $10,000 in the final round of the programme.

KT: How did you come up with the inspiration to create TosJis?

Mr Monyreach: It started from necessity. The other members of the team and I struggle with the bus system in the city. It is very complicated to know where to catch the bus and what bus you need to board next to arrive to your destination. We realised that there might be other people facing the same problems. We conducted a survey among 100 people to find out, and the results show that the problem was quite widespread. We then decided to tackle this social problem by creating our own app.

KT: Tell us more about your team.

Mr Monyreach: We have different backgrounds – technology, business, design, etc. – but we are in the same university.

KT: How will TosJis improve the lives of Cambodians?

Mr Monyreach: The mission of our platform is to efficiently guide passengers to their destination by showing them the best combination of buses that they can take. The app also shows arrival times, and connects users to ride- hailing services for the last part of the journey home.

It is simple. Users type in the address they want to go, and the app tells them where they need to go to catch the bus. While they are riding the bus, they can use in-built features in the app, such as the possibility of ordering a taxi from Grab – or other ride-hailing app – for the final leg of their journey home.

We are focusing on city buses, our goal being to reduce traffic and accidents as much as possible. We believe that most accidents are caused by individuals who are driving their own vehicles. If we can change their mindset and get them to ride public transport, we think it will alleviate a lot of the problems in Phnom Penh associated with traffic.

KT: How popular do you think your app is at the moment?

Mr Monyreach: We haven’t launched yet. Right now, we have a prototype, and we are hoping to release the market version sometime before June. Fortunately, we know that a lot of people are excited about our application because they struggle with traffic like we do and want solutions to this very important issue.