- Searches to Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and Goa are the top of the demand curve : Indicates the Abhibus Demand Supply Conundrum Trend Report
Mumbai, September 21st , 2020: Bus travelers across the country are eagerly waiting to undertake their travel for their various professional and personal needs as per the trends being mapped by the Abhibus Demand Supply Conundrum report. With recommendations from 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.
However the supply side remains a huge dampener due to shortage of buses in most routes, being operated by various RTC’s. 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 sanitization & cleaning and placing/replacing hand sanitizers for customers use.
As per the report by Abhibus, a leading online ticketing aggregator in India, the top 5 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 600,000 weekly searches with Bangalore-Chennai and Hyderabad-Chennai each accounting for 300k weekly searches. Hyderabad due to limited routes is also most sought after on the list with 700,00 weekly searches. These include Vijayawada-Hyderabad(125k), Vizag-Hyderabad(90k), Bangalore-Hyderabad(160K) amongst top cities from where commuters are looking to travel to Hyderabad.
Despite large scale availability of bus routes and options Delhi/NCR has half a million weekly searches mostly from UP/Punjab that includes Ludhiana-Delhi(62K), Amritsar-Delhi(88K), Chandigarh-Delhi(95K), Lucknow-NCR (37K), Kanpur-NCR (18K) as key sources of traffic to Delhi. Mumbai has about 200,000 weekly searches mostly from outside Maharashtra, Hyderabad-Mumbai, Bangalore-Mumbai, Goa-Mumbai, Indore-Mumbai, Ahmedabad-Mumbai are the top searched routes in this sector. Goa continues to be a popularly searched destination with over 2,50,000 searches a week, searches in 1st week of September were mostly from Hyderabad (55K), Mumbai(12K), Bangalore, (32K).
Commenting on these trends Mr. Rohit Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, Abhibus said, “Most of these top destinations are seeing 3-5X 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, Maharastra 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.”
The Abhibus Demand Supply Conundrum report has captured trends from Delhi/NCR, Bangalore, Maharastra, UP, AP/Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and details the demand, from origin to destination, count of services pre and post Covid.
1.) Top Searched Route From Karnataka:
Bangalore to Chennai– 300,669 searches in last 1 week on Abhibus. This is 5.5X of searches during the same time last year. Whereas from a supply standpoint only 58% of operators have either started or planning to start their services. Other key circuits from Karnataka where
demand is particularly high are Bangalore-Mumbai with 62270 searches, Bangalore-Madurai with 60K searches in 7 days. Most of the other top routes from Karnataka and Bangalore specifically have seen a minimum 3X demand compared to last September, same time.
| Route | From (City) | To (City) | To (State) | Enquiries (in last 7 days) | No. of Pvt. Operators | Total Count of Services
(Pre COVID) |
Total Count of Services
(Today) |
% of Services VS Pre COVID |
| Bangalore-Chennai | Bangalore | Chennai | Tamil Nadu | 306694 | 42 | 165 | 96 | 58% |
| Bangalore-Mumbai | Bangalore | Mumbai | Maharashtra | 62270 | 17 | 77 | 61 | 79% |
| Bangalore-Madurai | Bangalore | Madurai | Tamil Nadu | 60940 | 15 | 56 | 14 | 25% |
| Bangalore-Mangalore | Bangalore | Mangalore | Karnataka | 60885 | 31 | 100 | 65 | 65% |
| Bangalore-Goa | Bangalore | Goa | Goa | 57117 | 14 | 42 | 17 | 40% |
| Bangalore-Mysore | Bangalore | Mysore | Karnataka | 56730 | 13 | 27 | 15 | 56% |
| Gulbarga-Bangalore | Gulbarga | Bangalore | Karnataka | 55622 | 8 | 18 | 35 | 194% |
| Bangalore-Hubli | Bangalore | Hubli | Karnataka | 52076 | 32 | 147 | 102 | 69% |
| Raichur-Bangalore | Raichur | Bangalore | Karnataka | 42049 | 7 | 12 | 17 | 142% |
| Bangalore-Bellary | Bangalore | Bellary | Karnataka | 40830 | 27 | 52 | 36 | 69% |
2.) Top Searched Route From Delhi:
Delhi to Lucknow– 57712 searches in last 1 week on Abhibus. This is 3.7 X of searches during the same time last year. Whereas from a supply standpoint, the number of bus services have been more compared to last year. Almost all routes from Delhi have seen more buses plying with Delhi-Lucknow and Delhi-Kanpur seeing 39% and 35% more bus services.
Other key circuits from Delhi where demand is particularly high are Delhi-Jaipur, Delhi-Rishikesh, Delhi-Dehradun and Delhi-Shimla with 42,222, 17008 and 26,736 enquiries took place in past 7 days. Most of these routes are seeing 2-5x demand since last year.
| Route | From (City) | To (City) | To (State) | Enquiries (in last 7 days) | No. of Pvt. Operators | Total Count of Services (Pre COVID) | Total Count of Services
(Today) |
% of Services VS Pre COVID |
| Delhi-Bareilly | Delhi | Bareilly | Uttar Pradesh | 33010 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 500% |
| Delhi-Lucknow | Delhi | Lucknow | Uttar Pradesh | 57712 | 73 | 165 | 229 | 139% |
| Delhi-Kanpur | Delhi | Kanpur | Uttar Pradesh | 58468 | 24 | 52 | 70 | 135% |
| Delhi-Jaipur | Delhi | Jaipur | Rajasthan | 42222 | 51 | 135 | 165 | 122% |
| Delhi-Dehradun | Delhi | Dehradun | Uttarakhand | 18011 | 44 | 94 | 78 | 83% |
| Delhi-Rishikesh | Delhi | Rishikesh | Uttarakhand | 17008 | 44 | 91 | 67 | 74% |
| Delhi-Shimla | Delhi | Shimla | Himachal Pradesh | 26736 | 8 | 18 | 13 | 72% |
| Delhi-Manali | Delhi | Manali | Himachal Pradesh | 31111 | 51 | 112 | 67 | 60% |
3.) Top Searched Route From Tamil Nadu:
Chennai to Madurai– While the highest supply from Chennai is Intra state and almost negligible buses are crossing the state border, a whopping 90690 searches in last 1 week on Abhibus shows that the demand is very high. This is 6.7 X of searches during the same time last year.
Whereas from a supply standpoint, the number of bus services have been the least in TN across country. Almost all routes from Chennai have seen meager 20% capacity compared to last year and that too mostly Intra state.
Other key circuits from Chennai where demand is particularly high are Chennai-Coimbatore, Chennai-Hosur, Chennai-Salem and Chennai Trichy with 76618, 34348 and 24,875 enquiries took place in past 7 days.
Most of these routes are seeing 6X demand since last year.
| Route | From (City) | To (City) | To (State) | Enquiries (in last 7 days) | No. of Pvt. Operators | Total Count of Services (Pre COVID) | Total Count of Services
(Today) |
% of Services VS Pre COVID |
| Chennai-Madurai | Chennai | Madurai | Tamil Nadu | 90689 | 36 | 195 | 41 | 21% |
| Coimbatore-Bangalore | Coimbatore | Bangalore | Karnataka | 76618 | 36 | 105 | 23 | 22% |
| Coimbatore-Chennai | Coimbatore | Chennai |
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