Vollo, the Zagreb startup for the online booking of bus tickets who started a collaboration with Uber and has already began discussions with Jadrolinija, talks about their plans to cooperate with Croatian railways and airlines.
Vollo, along with Uber and BlaBlaCar, has led an innovation in the surge of traffic in Croatia. With that said, the European Commission, by 2030, wants to see better optimized transport in all member states not only in cargo but also in passenger traffic, reports Poslovni.hr on 20 December 2016.
Marko Jukic, co-founder and director of Vollo, speaks of his desire to consolidate all types of intercity passenger transportation in one place as it will help to reduce congestion on the highways of the sea, as well as to simplify the search for the cheapest means of transport from Zagreb to Osijek, and for example, from Sofia to Zurich.
While sites such as Booking.com and Airbnb offer tourists in Croatia a way to pay for and book accommodation, Vollo will allow tourists to do the same with transport – from their front door in London, Berlin or Vienna, to apartments, for example in Brac. “We are in contact with Jadrolinija and other shipping service providers, as well as railways to prepare technical and commercial requirements,” says Jukic. He adds that the current stops, which are the basis of such intermodal transport, are not currently possible. By developing a new technology that is called “Spajalica” (translated roughly to something that “connects”), Vollo will enable a network with a much larger number of different carriers which will significantly increase its reach. Jukic said that the “Spajalica” links to services like Uber with bus stations, and with bus stations to ferry terminals and so on.
“With ‘Spajalica’, we will be able to not only connect different forms of transport but have more use of existing transport and raise coverage, for example, from London – Amsterdam – Berlin – Zagreb – Split – Brac” says Jukic. Thus far without this new technology, Vollo has proved successful in expansion. In just 6 months, the Croatian transport startup has merged 150 carriers with more than 70,000 lines in twenty countries, all on a single platform, with 500 to 1,000 users daily.
“We have over 150,000 users on the web application that either use Vollo to prepare their trips, to explore their options and get information, or to get maps directly to their e-mail,” says Jukic. Vollo in just six months has increased their stock to ten employees, with operations in Croatia as well as a team of members that work from Denmark, Spain, Serbia and BiH. “We will continue to expand in Croatia and abroad,” says Jukic.
