Intercity bus industry grows 25% in April-Sept: Report

Mumbai: India's intercity bus industry logged a 25 per cent growth year-on-year at 140 million passengers in the April-September period this year compared to 112 million passengers in the same period last year, driven by higher inventory and entry of new operators, according to an industry report.

The growth was accompanied by a ticketing value of Rs13,200 crore across more than 6,000 active private bus operators, RedBus' latest BusTrack Report said. The report, which covers data from the entire Indian intercity bus industry, connected to redBus' platform, shows that sleeper and hybrid buses accounted for 85 per cent of all journeys, while AC services comprised 71 per cent of seats sold during the six-month period.

Also, over 670,000 unique routes connected more than 11,000 towns during the period with nearly 65 per cent of all routes stretched beyond 250 kilometres, indicating a shift towards longer, cross-regional journeys, it said. "This 25 per cent y-o-y growth has come on the back of existing bus operators adding inventory, new operators starting businesses on traditional routes and digitisation of inventory in long tail and new routes. We also see a clear shift in the preference towards AC buses," RedBus CEO Prakash Sangam said. "There has been a big jump in the number of private bus operators coming online, which has led to a significant expansion in the network base in both towns connected as well as unique bus routes," he said. Pan-India, as much as 76 per cent of seats on intercity buses were occupied during the period with Andhra Pradesh and Telangana recording the highest seat fill rate at 84 per cent, while Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh saw lower utilisation at 63 per cent, as per the report.