Terms of use
Last updated 21 September 2026
Agreement
By using the Arkobus app or this website you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the service. Arkobus operates from Kathmandu, Nepal.
What the service is
Arkobus provides route, fare and timing information for public transport in the Kathmandu valley. It is an information service. We do not operate buses, sell tickets, or act as an agent for any operator.
Accuracy
The network is surveyed on the ground and kept up to date by hand, so it is a best effort rather than a guarantee. Fares shown are the rates published by the transport authorities as we understand them, and both fares and timings should be treated as estimates: a conductor may charge differently, and timings are worked out from how long a route usually takes at that hour rather than from live vehicle positions. Plan time-critical journeys with a margin.
Who owns the route data
Which routes exist, where they run, the order of their stops, what they cost, and the network as compiled are our own work. It was surveyed on the ground, route by route, over a long time, and assembled by us. It is not an open dataset, and putting it in front of you through the app or this website does not place it in the public domain or licence it for reuse.
The drawn line each route follows is matched onto road geometry from OpenStreetMap, so that part carries OpenStreetMap's own licence rather than ours. See Data sources below. Our claim is to the survey and the compilation: the knowledge of what runs where, which is the part that took the work.
How you may use it
You may use Arkobus for your own journeys: personal, non-commercial use, through the Arkobus app and this website. That is the licence we grant, and it does not include any right to extract, store or reuse the underlying data.
Your account
You are responsible for the accuracy of what you enter and for keeping access to your account secure. We may suspend accounts used to submit deliberately false route data or to abuse the service.
Your contributions
When you send us a correction, a report, or a recorded trip or trace, you grant us a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free licence to use, adapt and include it in the route database and in anything built from it, including commercially. You keep whatever rights you already had in it. Do not send anything you do not have the right to share.
Acceptable use
Do not access the service in bulk or by automated means, scrape it, or harvest the route data. Do not redistribute or resell it, and do not use it to assemble a dataset of your own or to build a competing service. Do not work around rate limits, access controls or any other technical measure, and do not attempt to disrupt the service or use it for anything unlawful.
We monitor how the service is used and log access patterns to detect this. Accounts and addresses doing any of the above may be rate limited, suspended or blocked without notice.
Licensing the data
If you want to use the route data for anything beyond personal travel, ask us rather than taking it. Transport bodies, municipalities, researchers and companies are all welcome to get in touch through the contact form and we will talk about terms. We would rather licence it than find it copied.
Liability
The service is provided as is. To the extent permitted by law, Arkobus is not liable for missed connections, additional costs, or losses arising from reliance on route, fare or timing information.
Changes and availability
Features may change and the service may be unavailable at times. We may update these terms; continued use after an update means you accept it.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of Nepal, with disputes subject to the courts of Kathmandu.
Data sources
Route paths are matched onto the road network from OpenStreetMap, and the line stored and drawn is OpenStreetMap's geometry of that road. Stop and kerb positions sit on that matched line. OpenStreetMap is published under the Open Database Licence, which asks that contributors be credited: © OpenStreetMap contributors. Place and landmark data comes in part from Overture Maps, published under CDLA-Permissive 2.0. Maps in the app are rendered by Google Maps.
The bus network itself - which routes exist, where they run, and where they stop - is our own survey work, together with rider corrections and fare rates published by the transport authorities.
Contact
Reach us through the contact form, or Email us.