Govt relaunches national portal for bus ticketing BusIndia.com

The government has relaunched national bus ticketing portal BusIndia.com which has already been active for three years. Bangalore-based Radiant Info Systems launched BusIndia.com in association with Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) in 2009. A report published by The Economic Times in September quoted Ashish Misra, head of training and consultancy at CIRT stating, "The idea is to make it more convenient for customers to access public transport. We didn't get much traction when we started the project a few years ago, but now the situation has changed."

Using the portal, customers can book tickets for state-run buses too; BusIndia counts this as one of its biggest USPs. Most other players like redBus, Paytm and travelyaari are still working to bring state-run buses too on their network. BusIndia wants to expand to offer private bus reservations as well.

The portal offers bus and hotel bookings. Like other popular bus ticketing sites, customers can make one way, round trip and multiple trips bookings on the site. Payment modes like credit/debit cards and internet banking are available. The portal claims to be selling 47,000 tickets a day, as per The Economics Times report.

Another report in The Hindu Business Line said BusIndia is looking to raise over Rs 200 crore from private equity funds. The portal is also looking at adding flight tickets soon, stated the report.

The bus ticketing and OTA market has been in the limelight after redBus' blockbuster acquisition by Ibibo recently. Online bus ticketing in India still has a long way to go as it has been a fragmented sector for long. The national portal tries to emulate the success of train ticketing site IRCTC but it does not have a first mover advantage. Its success will depend on the user interface and customer experience, among other things.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)