‘What did bus travel in India look like in 2019?’ – Stats from redBus’s annual report
The year 2019 may have taken us through many ups & downs. But it has surely witnessed cool new interesting twists & turns in the way India travelled by bus. Bus has been one of the most opted and frequently used mode of transport in India and the facts and figures from the world’s largest online bus ticketing platform are not just surprisingly exciting, but also typifies the trends and patterns of the bus travel sector.
With the leading 23 government and 2600+ private bus operators across the nation on the redBus platform, more than 38,000 buses have been tracked on a daily basis to understand India’s dependence on buses for inter-city travel.
A whopping 9 million+ traveller ratings and over 1.9 million seats being offered daily, redBus’ annual report gives us a peek into the industry as well as a clear picture of the Desi choices and preferences for bus travel.
Here’s how India’s bus journey itinerary of 2019 look like:
Digital India, new India.
With the advent of smartphones and mobile internet getting cheaper, technology is well within the reach of the average citizen, thanks to some of the key telecom players like Reliance Jio. This has changed everything that we could possibly do, from online shopping to banking/bill payments, from media consumption to ordering food and what not?
Travel industry is no stranger to this. The boom in businesses across the industry is fairly visible. For redBus, out of the 5892 cities/towns covered this year, 1500+ are new cities/towns added on to the platform in 2019 alone! Equally surprising are the fastest growing destinations on redBus in terms of online bus ticket booking, most of them being tier II and tier III cities/towns:
a. Dewas (Madhya Pradesh)
b. Burdwan (West Bengal)
c. Sagar (Madhya Pradesh)
d. Bhavnagar (Gujarat)
e. Satara (Maharashtra)
f. Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh)
g. Gandhinagar (Gujarat)
h. Haldwani (Uttarakhand)
i. Patna (Bihar)
j. Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh)
The longest route…
Ever wondered what could possibly be the longest bus route in India? Here’s the answer:
Out of the more than one lakh routes covered by redBus in 2019, Bangalore – Jaitaran (Rajasthan) was the longest to travel. Wondering how long this is? 1954 kilometres! With a total travel time of about 33 hours! Insanely long, isn’t it?
All the way from the Silicon Valley of India to a small town in Pali district of Rajasthan, with a total population of just 22,639.
Incredible India!
Aim for the Sun!
Behold Suryayaan. Imagine travelling from the earth to the sun. Not just once, but 108 times. That’s how much redBus customers travelled in 2019. Surprised? This year alone redBus travellers had covered a total distance of 32.36 billion kilometres! Now that’s also nearly 4 trips to Pluto.
All hail Bangalore!
Yes, that’s right. The Garden City tops the chart for favourite destinations in 2019, followed by Chennai, Hyderabad & Pune. The top 10 destinations for bus travel on redBus in 2019 were as follows:
1. Bangalore
2. Chennai
3. Hyderabad
4. Pune
5. Coimbatore
6. Mumbai
7. Delhi
8. Ahmedabad
9. Indore
10. Vijaywada
Every second counts
It’s not just a saying, at redBus it’s a very important aspect. This year, 2.2 seats were booked every second on redBus. That’s double the number of times our heart beats per second on an average!
The passenger family
The total number of passengers that travelled through redBus in 2019 is jaw-dropping. 7, 16, 38,896 or 71.63 million! Now how big is that? It is greater than the population of Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Norway and Sweden combined. Phew!
Weekend vibes & Monday blues
When it comes to the days Indians travelled the most this year, the answer is too obvious. Fridays and Sundays. Be it those customary visits to home or the holiday getaway with friends, what time can be better than a weekend to travel, right?
What is even more obvious is the booking patterns on the platform. 3 out of 4 redBus customers book their tickets just two days before the journey. Are we procrastinators or driven by whim? One out of five book tickets only 4 hours prior to their travel. Taking a hop on the bus quite literally, wouldn’t you say?
Bus ticket or Vada Pav?
Did you know that the cheapest bus ticket on redBus can be cheaper than a Vada pav or an Aloo tikki? For almost an hour’s trip from Rajula to Hemal in Gujarat, all you have to pay is just 18 rupees! Believe it or not. Tickets available on the platform can get as economical as that.
Diwali Dhamaka!
Be it the cravings for sweets, the excitement of bursting crackers or the suspense involved in receiving surprise gifts, Diwali is never a festival unless it’s celebrated with your loved ones. So true! This year, over four lakh people across the country made it to their homes on tickets booked through redBus and had their Diwali wishes come true by celebrating it with their kith and kin, after travelling many a mile. Approximately 4, 03,540 people travelled to their homes on Friday, 25th October alone.
Happy Diwali = Being with family!
“Go Goa go!”
Goa continues to be the most popular leisure destination. No wonder it is touted as a “Tourists’ Paradise”. Pondicherry and Udaipur are the other two cities in the list of top 3.
God loving and God fearing people here!
The most popular religious destinations connected by redBus, were Tirupati and Shirdi.
“The future of India lies in its villages!” – Are we there yet?
Mahatma Gandhi’s prophesy seems to be inching towards reality. Tier 2 and 3 cities and towns in India are now the new markets for the brands of the world and people here are catching up with their metropolitan counterparts, including travelling.
Bus ticket bookings from tier 2 and 3 cities and towns increased by 53% this year and now contributes to 56% of the total bookings. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are truly on-board now!
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About redBus
redBus was founded in 2006 in India and today is the world’s largest online bus ticketing platform. After having solved complex problems of bus customers in India, redBus also launched operations in Singapore and Malaysia in 2015 and acquired a majority stake in Peru based bus ticketing platform Busportal (now redBus.Pe) in the subsequent year. With this acquisition, redBus successfully launched operations in Latin America markets, Peru & shortly thereafter, Colombia.
redBus has globally sold more than 180 million bus tickets till date and has a customer base of around 20 million users. redBus is now part of the MakeMyTrip group (Nasdaq, MMYT) which is the largest travel aggregator in India with offerings across categories such as Flights, Hotels, Holiday Packages, etc
The business owns three products - redBus™, redBus Plus™ and redBus Partner™, which come together to serve and address the fragmented bus industry across geographies.
● redBus™ is the popular consumer-facing travel brand enabling customers to buy bus tickets online. Consumers, depending on where they live, can access redBus on the web (redbus.in, redbus.my, redbus.sg, redbus.
● redProWin™ is a cloud-based solution built for bus operators. Approximately 2500+ bus operators in India, SEA and Latin America use this platform for their day to day operations. The revolutionary inventory management software ensures seat realization and resource utilization, thus improving revenue and profitability for bus operators. Over the years, through the use of engineering & data analytics, redBus has offered features such as LIVE bus tracking, dynamic pricing, customer relationship management, etc., which have helped bus operators improve operational efficiency as well as service quality.
● redBus Partner™ is a GDS for bus inventory distribution and is used by more than 20,000 retail agents and 200+ OTAs to sell bus tickets to their customers.
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