Welcome Aboard: BusMagus Is Live, and Here Is What We Promise You

Today is a good day. After many months of building, testing, arguing about button colours and riding a great many coaches ourselves, BusMagus is open to everyone. If you are reading this, you are among the very first people to use it, and we would like to start by saying thank you and welcome aboard.

Why we built this

Anyone who has travelled by bus across Albania, Kosovo, Greece and their neighbours knows the feeling. You know a coach goes to where you want to be. You just do not know when it leaves, what it costs, whether there is a seat left or which company is running it today, and the only way to find out is to go to the station and ask, or to phone a number from a poster and hope. We thought that was a strange way to run one of the most useful transport networks in Europe, and we decided to fix it. Our mission is simple to say and took a long time to do. Every coach in the region, from every company, on one timetable, with a real price and a real seat, bookable in a few minutes from wherever you are, in your own language.

What is live today

From this morning you can search any two places we serve and see every departure that day, side by side, from every operator that runs it. You can see how long each coach takes, where it stops along the way, whether it has wifi or a toilet on board, and what it costs, and you can sort by cheapest, fastest, earliest or latest. You can look at the days either side to find a better price. When you book, the seat is held for you while you pay by card, and your ticket arrives by email in the operator's language and in English, with a short code the driver recognises on the day. It works on our website and in our apps for iPhone and Android, in fifteen languages, and the map of places we cover grows every time a new operator joins. When something is unclear, our Help Center answers the common questions and our contact form reaches a real person who will write back.

What we promise passengers

We promise to tell you the truth. The times you see are the operator's own timetable, not our guess. The prices are the operator's prices, with no markup added by us, and when a fare drops we show you the old one struck through so you can see it. The reviews next to a coach were written by people who actually rode it, tied to a real ticket, and nobody can write one any other way. When your plans change we will be clear about what can and cannot be refunded before you pay, and if you want the freedom to change your mind, Flexible Ticket gives you it for a few percent more. And when you write to us, a person will answer. Not a bot, not a form that vanishes. A person.

What we promise the people who run the coaches

None of this exists without the bus companies, and we know it. To every operator who has joined us, and to every one who is thinking about it, our promise is to be a partner and not a middleman. Your timetable, your prices and your seats stay in your hands, managed from your own login, and every booking reaches you the moment it is made. We will bring you passengers you would not have reached, in languages you do not speak, from countries you do not advertise in, and we will settle with you clearly and on time. The same goes for the travel agencies who sell alongside us and the partner sites who plug into our timetable. One shelf, shared honestly, is better for all of us than ten shelves that do not talk to each other.

How to reach us, and what comes next

We are a small team and we intend to stay close. If something does not work, tell us. If something could work better, tell us that too. The contact form is on the Help page, and we read everything. Over the coming months you will see more routes, more operators, more countries and more of the small conveniences that make a long journey pleasant, and many of those will come directly from what you write to us in the first weeks. So book a trip, ride a coach, and let us know how it went. We are very glad you are here.