Bus travellers await long distance journeys, supply remains subdued: Report

NEW DELHI: Bus travellers across India are waiting to undertake long distance journeys for both professional and personal reasons as the country gradually moves forward under Unlock 4.0, but the supply side remains a huge dampener due to shortage of buses in most routes, according to a report by online ticketing aggregator Abhibus.

With recommendations from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to ease interstate travel, the industry is witnessing massive demand for travel from customers across the country and has witnessed tremendous spikes over the last few weeks, Abhibus said in a statement.

The top five most searched cities by volume are Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and Goa.

"Chennai has witnessed one of the highest demands in terms of route searches of 6,00,000 weekly searches with Bangalore-Chennai and Hyderabad-Chennai each accounting for 3,00,000 weekly searches," it said.

Hyderabad, due to limited routes, is also most sought after on the list, including searches for Vijayawada-Hyderabad (1,25,000), Vizag-Hyderabad (90,000), Bangalore-Hyderabad(1,60,000) amongst top cities from where commuters are looking to travel to Hyderabad.

The Abhibus report found that Delhi/NCR has 5,00,000 weekly searches mostly from UP/Punjab that includes Ludhiana-Delhi (62,000), Amritsar-Delhi (88,000), Chandigarh-Delhi (95,000), Lucknow-NCR (37,000), Kanpur-NCR (18,000) as key sources of traffic to Delhi.

Mumbai has about 2,00,000 weekly searches mostly from outside Maharashtra.

Hyderabad-Mumbai, Bangalore-Mumbai, Goa-Mumbai, Indore-Mumbai, Ahmedabad-Mumbai are the top searched routes in this sector, it added.

Goa continues to be a popularly searched destination with over 2,50,000 searches a week, in the first week of September the searches were mostly from Hyderabad (55,000), Mumbai (12,000) and Bangalore (32,000).

The report, however, said the supply side remains a huge dampener due to shortage of buses in most routes, being operated by various road transport corporations (RTCs).

"Private operators have opened up the routes despite a loss making proposition largely due to having to maintain social distancing norms – impacting the inventory of seats and additional expenses being incurred for maintaining safe travel conditions that include frequent sanitisation and cleaning and placing/replacing hand sanitizers for customers use," it added.

Commenting on the findings, Abhibus Chief Operating Officer Rohit Sharma said most of these top destinations are seeing three to five times increased interest compared to last September.

"Customers are waiting for opening up of routes to predominantly undertake essential travel and to some extent tourism. While Delhi/NCR has ample supply, other states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and to some extent Telangana have not yet opened interstate travel. We are witnessing an increase in the pent-up demand on a week on week basis," he added.