With financing from the World Bank, Anbessa City Bus Service Enterprise is starting the process of adopting an application for better transport management.

The 77-year-old public transport operator secured 12.5 million dollars from the World Bank for the project. Out of the total budget, 10 million dollars of it is allocated for the Intelligent Transport System, while the remaining is allotted for consultancy service.

Using computers and communications equipment, the system aims at making the city's transportation system faster, safer and more efficient. The System includes e-ticketing cards, a global positioning system (GPS) and passenger counting application.

The System will also have automatic vehicle identifiers and GPS-based automatic vehicle locators with cameras. The hardware mainly records data, including traffic count, travel speed, travel time, location, vehicle weight and delays. The hardware devices are connected to servers located at data collection centres, which store information for further analysis.

The system targets to achieve traffic efficiency by minimising traffic problems, according to Habtu Reda, an information tech main process owner of the Enterprise, which transports more than half a million citizens a day across 125 routes and generates more than 1.2 million Br a day.

"It provides users with prior information about traffic conditions and seat availability," said Habtu. "It will also increase road safety and efficient infrastructure usage."

The Enterprise has been conducting a feasibility study on the project for a year and a half with the assistance of the Addis Abeba Transport Authority's Transport Management Office (TPMO).

Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd, an Indian firm, was hired for the consultancy service, including the preparation of user functionality, design and specification including preparation of the bid document. The company was hired in 2016 to work on the first phase of the project, which is the feasibility study part.

The Indian firm, which was formed after a joint venture merger between the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the IDFC Foundation, specialises in urban transportation, commissioning, consultancy, intelligent transport system solutions and urban transport asset management services.

The Enterprise will float an international tender in a month to hire a company that will supply the programme, according to Habtu.