Formal Proposal — OAU Transport System

Digital payments for the OAU
transport system

TicketPay lets students pay for rides directly from their phones — while keeping drivers, management, and the existing ticket process exactly as they are today.

See how it works →

Changes to existing ops

Cost to management

30k+

Students on campus

Context

The transport situation demands a better payment experience

"The 72-hour student lecture boycott of April 2026 exposed structural stress in OAU's campus transport system. With over 30,000 students relying on a limited bus and tricycle fleet, every friction point — including cash-based ticketing — compounds an already strained experience."

Management has taken commendable steps: reinstating the Towngboro arrangement, integrating CNG buses and tricycles, and overhauling the regulatory framework. The payment infrastructure, however, remains entirely manual. TicketPay addresses this specific gap without touching anything else.

💸

Cash friction slows boarding

Queues at peak hours are a direct product of manual cash exchange. Digital payment at boarding cuts this to seconds.

🎟️

Physical ticket risk

Tickets can be lost, damaged, or counterfeited. A digital record is permanent and verifiable.

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No visibility for management

Management currently has no real-time data on ride volumes or revenue flow. TicketPay generates this automatically.

How it works

Two simple flows. One familiar outcome.

TicketPay does not replace the University's ticketing system. Students can still pay with physical tickets. Drivers still redeem at management's office — exactly as before.

Student flow

1

Register on TicketPay and fund a personal wallet via card, bank transfer, or USSD.
2

On boarding, scan the driver's QR code or enter the driver's unique code manually.
3

Select fare amount and confirm. Payment completes instantly.
4

A confirmation screen with the driver's name, amount, and a time-stamped code appears. Show this to the driver.

Driver flow

1

Register through designated University staff with vehicle and ID details.
2

Receive a unique QR code and identifier to display in the vehicle. No smartphone needed during rides.
3

Confirm each payment by checking the student's confirmation screen — driver's name and amount must match.
4

At close of day, visit management's office to redeem digital payments — converted to physical tickets, same process as today.

Audit integrity: Every transaction is time-stamped and driver-linked on our servers. Management's admin portal shows per-driver totals in real time — so the numbers are verified before a driver walks in to redeem. No driver can manipulate what management already sees.

Our request

We are asking for endorsement, not funding

TicketPay requires no financial investment, no change to revenue processes, and no new administrative workload from management.

What we're asking	What it means in practice
Official endorsement	Permission for TicketPay to operate as an approved supplementary payment channel within the campus transport system.
Staff-supervised driver registration	A designated staff member oversees onboarding — ensuring only verified, authorised drivers receive platform credentials.
Structured pilot approval	A limited trial on one route or vehicle category, giving management full visibility before any broader rollout is considered.

Safeguards

Our commitments to management

✓

Full transaction records are available to management at any time for independent audit.
✓

Driver redemption remains under management's control. TicketPay does not hold or retain any University transport funds — all funds pass through a licensed Nigerian payment processor.
✓

Physical ticket holders are not disadvantaged. Both payment methods coexist without conflict.
✓

The platform operates at zero cost to the University and requires no changes to existing administrative workflows.
✓

Student data is handled in accordance with applicable Nigerian data protection guidelines and is never sold or shared with third parties.

The team

Built by OAU students, for OAU students

TicketPay is not a theoretical proposal. It is a functional, deployed platform — accessible at visit the website here — built by two students who use this transport system every day.

Sherifdeen Raji

Industrial Chemistry, 300 Level
Full-stack developer

Yusuff Mubaraq

Computer Science & Engineering, 300 Level
Software engineer

As students of this institution, we have a direct stake in seeing the OAU transport system work better — not as external vendors, but as members of this community.

Digital payments for the OAUtransport system