Stops Near Me, an App to Help You Using the Public Bus in Phnom Penh

My first time in Phnom Penh City was in 2013. I didn't like this city! Because it was hot, dusty, the city looks old, damp, the food & (they said) full of scams so made me a bit down. But since it was for a business trip, I can't really explore. So, I said I should come back again to explore the city to my heart's content.

Fast forward, now the city is being upgraded. Developments are everywhere. The city was still hot, but I can see the progressiveness in their development of infrastructures, as well as their daily lives. I can see now almost every corner in the city has coffee shop. Either franchise, local or street coffee shop (or even street bar). Well, the people here love to hangout anyway.

Oke, now let's talk about their public bus. Back then, when the old airport looks like a terminal bus, there was no any public transportation from the airport to the city. You should hire a taxi, tuk-tuk or moto! It's easy to find them. Just go through the exit gate then they will swarm after you. You had (and have) to have bargaining skills here.

Back in 2017, my second time in the city, they have the buses now. But the condition was not so good. It was the old buses imported from Japan. In 2018, back here again, now the buses were getting better. Each time I came to the city, they are improving. Now all the buses are brand new, and they have tap card system. Now they even have an application to for the bus!  It's called Stops Near Me app.

With this app, you can see where is the nearest bus stop, where is the bus located now and inform the bus driver that you're waiting them at the bus stop!

Here's how to use it;

This is the current interface of the app. You can see there are many lines with different colors. They are the buses trajectory. On the bottom right corner, there are 3 buttons; the left one is English/Khmer language button, middle one is the button to inform the driver that you're waiting them on the bus stop and the right one is for your current location.

The red circle was the max route early this year. Now (December 2019) it is expanding further! Means, the developments are going strong!

You can zoom in and scroll trough the map and see which route available. For instance, you want to go to airport from central market. You see the dark blue color is passing in front of the airport. Zoom in around that color, and througout central market.

Zoom in around central market, there are bus stops nearby available there. Follow the dark blue color.

Click on the bus stop icon on the dark blue color line, then you'll see the bus line (bus number 3) and the station name. There's bell icon and walking distance from where you currently at (right now I'm in Jakarta, hence the distance is far far away).

The bus stops usually look like this. Just a simple sign. This one is for bus line 5.

For bigger bus stops usually has canopy like this

Inside the bus

To alight the bus, wave at them once they're approaching. Then hop on the bus, pay the fare (KHR 1.500 or around USD 0.40) and put them inside the box beside the driver. Pay with exact amount of cash otherwise they don't have any change. To hop off, click the red button before the bus stops. Now, this app and passapp (local ride hailing app for tuktuk) is my weapon to explore the city!