Ethiopia Integrates Fuel, Fares, and Fines in Sweeping Digital Reform

The Ministry of Transport and Logistics, in partnership with Ethio Telecom, has unveiled a comprehensive digital transport management system aimed at modernizing Ethiopia’s intercity travel services. The platform, launched Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Addis Ababa, is designed to consolidate cross-country bus operations, operator licensing, ticketing, fuel payments, and traffic penalty systems into an integrated digital framework.

The system seeks to improve regulatory oversight, reduce inefficiencies, and enhance transparency across the country’s sprawling intercity transport network. Officials say it will cover more than 1,995 intercity buses and serve around 480,000 passengers each month, while digitizing key services such as online ticketing, fare and route management, and operator licensing.

Biruk Adane, chief mobile money officer at Telebirr, Ethio Telecom’s mobile financial platform, said the system will integrate 13 cross-country bus associations and 255 registered inter-regional routes. It is expected to facilitate up to 325 million ticket transactions monthly.

A key component of the platform crafted by Ethiotelecom is the national traffic penalty management system, which replaces all manual fine payments with digital transactions. The platform supports multiple payment gateways and aims to ensure that 100 percent of traffic-related payments are processed electronically within a unified digital system. Ethiopia’s transport ministry managed to collect more half a billion birr from traffic penalties across nine months in 2023.

According to Biruk, the rollout of the platform will begin with existing transport operators and expand gradually. Implementation will depend on onboarding users, equipping regional agencies, and integrating with service providers. 

The new platform builds on top of a 2024 effort by the Ministry of Transport and Logistics and the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration aimed at digitizing fuel supply and payments. Officials stated that the new system is intended to accommodate entities previously excluded from digital fuel payment mechanisms due to capacity limitations. 

“Inclusivity, in this case, refers to the participation of financial institutions and the incorporation of existing manual processes into the digital transport framework,” said Transport Minister Alemu Sime (PhD). State Minister Bareo Hassen added that the objective is to move all fuel transactions into a digital environment, eliminating cash-based payments and bringing the entire process under a centralized system.

Ethiopia's government has been attempting to attain end-to-end digitization across the fuel supply chain for the past two years with mixed success. While significant headway has been made in major cities across the past two years with over 400-billion-birr worth of transactions facilitated, national implementation has remained relatively limited.