Study on Passenger Preferences While Booking Bus

Tickets

INTRODUCTION
Online Bus Ticketing Industry:
With the introduction of Online Bus Ticketing, travelling by bus has become more
comfortable. The comfort which was started by an idea to revolutionize the offline
bus ticketing into an Online medium, to provide users with the comfort to book
tickets being at home/office. The current market size of online bus ticketing is
over Rs.500-600 crore which is just 3-4% of the Rs.15000 crore markets.
A number of investors including Seed fund, Helion Venture Partners, Inventus
Capital Partners, FootPrint Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, GVFL & a few
US based Angels have accelerated the online bus ticketing industry by providing
necessary capital and mentorship in start-ups like redBus.in, Travelyaari,
Ticketgoose.com, Ticketvala.
Also the industry is in the consolidation stage as recently Redbus the market
leader has been acquired by ibibo group a joint venture in India between South
Africas Naspers and Chinas Tencent at the investment of $135 million (800
crores).
Competitors:
The major competitors if we start new site are Redbus, Travelyaari and Abhibus
Redbus:
Redbus is Indias biggest online bus ticketing company. The company also sells
tickets through offline outlets. Offices: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai,
Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.
It was taken over by the Ibibo Group, a joint venture of South Africas Naspers
and Chinas Tencent in June 2013.Redbus.in, the bus ticketing venture reported
net revenues of Rs.32,87,00,903 (around $5.55 million) for the year ended 31st
March 2012, up 170.72% from Rs.12,14,18,304 (around $2.05 million), according
to the companys filings with the registrar of companies.

Table 1 :
Redbus FY12

Net revenue for the company, which was reported to have clocked Rs.55 crore and
a gross merchandise value of Rs.600 crore (around $100 million) for FY13, and a
net profit of around Rs.2 crore. The company is clearly on the growth path, and
for the market leader in the bus ticketing space in India.
Travelyaari:
Travelyaari is an Indian online bus ticketing website with its offices in Bangalore
and other major cities like Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad,
Chennai, Vijayawada and Rajkot. It claims to have 50,000 unique visitors a day.
Travelyaaris back-end system is used by more than 650 transporters across the
country. Travelyaari.com itself has become very popular among the bus travelers
community and is growing at more than 400 per cent growth rate. In last 2 years
Travelyaaris sales has increased from Rs.5 crores to an expectation of Rs.150
crores. This financial year Travelyaari.com will do Rs.150 crores and next year it
is targeting sales of Rs.500 crores and a year after that sale of Rs.1100 crores. It is
because of the end to end model which enables Travelyaari to deliver such a high
growth rate.
Apart from providing facilities to book bus tickets online, the company also
provides platforms for bus operators. It has tied up with two state governments
those of Punjab and Himachal Pradeshto provide platforms for online ticket
reservation. Travelyaari has also started selling tickets for Punjab Transport
Corporation, Himachal Pradesh Tourism Department and the Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh state transport organisation.
Abhibus:
It is a Hyderabad-based online bus ticket booking portal. Apart from ticket
booking, it also provides end-to-end transport solutions for bus fleet owners,
vehicle tracking companies and e-ticketing systems for the online travel agencies,

such as Make My Trip, Cleartrip, Goibibo and Yatra. It also offers technology
support to state transport corporations of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Reddy said this industry is predominantly in the
western and southern India with Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Kerala and Karnataka together accounting for 70 per cent of
penetration. In 2012-13, AbhiBus clocked revenue of Rs.150 crore and is
expecting to garner Rs 350 crore in 2013-14 and around Rs.700 crore in 2014-15.

OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
.

To analyse and to study the various passengers preferences to determine

short and long term plans to survive in that industry.

To understand crucial elements and to give suggestions.

To understand the future trends in various future aspects based on the

primary data.

To find the passengers choice of travels they prefer for long journeys
through bus.

To find mode of booking for their Journey.

To study passenger preferences according to their profession.

To study whether passengers changing their types of for their journey.

METHODOLOGY OF STUDY
Research Design
Descriptive: It includes surveys and fact findings of different kinds. The major
purpose of a descriptive research is the description of the state of affairs as it
exists as present. Research has no control over variables.
Methods of Data Collection
There are two types of Data
1.Primary data
2.Secondary data
Primary data collection: Primary data can be collected by three methods.
1. Observation
2. Experiments
3. Surveys
But here, only surveys method of data collection is preferred which is very
suitable to reach the researcher motto.
Research instrument:
Printed Questionnaire was used as the research instrument to collect the required
information.
Area of surveys: The survey was conducted through online.
Sampling plan:
1. Sampling size: 43 people who are from different regions.
2. Sampling procedure: Simple random sampling procedure was followed
3. Sampling method:
4. Data were collected from students, and employees known to me. Data is
Collected through online Survey method.
Tools of Data Analysis: Bar Graphs and Tables.

NEED
To understand the overview of the online bus booking industry .To gain practical
knowledge. To understand the financial soundness of the passsengers based on
their type of bus they choosed for their journey. To understand neccesities of the
passengers for their travel. To understand how the online portals are penetrating in
bus booking industry. The propose system or this study is to computarise
travelling company to manage data, so that all the transactions become fast and
they should not be error in transaction like calculation mistakes, receipt generation
and other things. It replaces all the paper work. It keeps records of all bills, also
given to ensure 99% succesfull implementation of the computarised bus
reservation system. Our reservation system has three modules.
First Module helps the customer to enquire the availability
of seats in a particular bus at a particular date. Second Module helps to reserve a
ticket. Third Module helps to cancel a ticket. Factors that direct us to develop a
new system or faster system, accuracy, reliability, informative, reservations and
cancellations, from anywhere to any place.
This passenger survey is conducted to give an independent,
in depth and objective and objective snapshot of the views of the bus travellers
from one place to another place into what they want, why they make choices and
on what they spend spend their money.

SCOPE
This study has a very scope in future. This study can be updated in the near future
when the requirement arises, as it is very flexible in terms of expansion with a
fully automated solution, less staff better space utilisation and peaceful work
environment, and the company is bound to experience higher turnover. A feautre
application of this system in the fact that the propsed system would remain
relevant in the future. In case there are any additions or deletion of services,
addition or deletion of any reseller in any type of modification in future can be
implemented easily. The data collected by the system will be useful for some other
purposes also. All these result in higher client satisfaction, hence, more and more
business for the company that will scale the company business to new heights in
the forthcoming future. This study is carried with help of primary data (through
online survey).

LIMITATIONS

This study is limited to 50 samples questionnaire. Samples are taken only

from the respondents of different ages and different professions..

This study focuses on public bus transport corporations such as Andhra

Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), Telangana State
Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) , KSRTC (Karnataka State Road
Transport Corporation) and other prominent private travels like Kesineni,
Diwakar and Orange travels which provide their services for different
routes from major cities like Hyderabad , Vijayawada and Vizag and I am
unable to cover lot of other privat travels.

Inadequacy of time is the major limitation faced by the researcher.

Due to lack of time I am unable to conduct face to face interview.

The study is based only on the data which was collected through survey
only.

ANALYSIS
1. Which travels you will prefer while booking a bus?

2. Which type of bus you prefer for your Journey?

3.Are you changing the type of bus while booking? (For ex.. You
are interested in AC Sleeper But you choose for non-ac while
booking.)

4. What is the mode of booking?

5. What is the portal you prefer while booking tickets?

6. Reasons for using particular website?

7. How you come to Know About These portals?

8. Problems Faced in Booking Online Tickets.

9..Analysis based on respondents.

Nearly 66.12% respondents are students, 18.54% are Private employees, 2.34%
are unemployees, 13% are Govt. Employees.

SUMMARY
The opinion of the respondents as to their bus usage profile, preference for buses
between private operators and state owned RTC and reasons for such preference
have been undertaken in this study.
The study reveals that passengers used to travel mostly by RTC buses which is
closely followed by private buses and third comes the government corporation
buses. This is in tune with the number of groups held by each operator. However,
it is interesting to note that certain group of passengers such as low income group
of respondents , passengers who travel for Business purposes, and passengers
who travel more distance have used the buses of both private and RTC equally.
The illiterate and aged passengers have used more of private buses than RTC
buses. In all the factor groups the buses of other corporations have been used the
least by the respondents. It is observed that majority of the passengers have
preferred RTC buses to private buses. However, the respondents level of
preference for RTC varies among the different groups of passengers based on their
socio-economic background.

FINDINGS

Covered a total of 50 respondents

Out of these respondents more than 82% respondents are booking there
tickets through online portals, 12% through agents and 2% through
operators and 4% in other ways.

Out of all respondents booking through operators more than 99% are
booking offline and on the spot through bus conductor.

All most many respondents are willing to use mobile phones for ticketing
of which maximum are voting for Apps. .

Most of the respondents prefer AC semi sleeper, Non-AC Semi Sleeper

and Non-AC Sleeper for their journeys..

41.67% repondents are preferring RTC for their journey because of safety
precautions taken by RTC. And in second place SRS Travels.

Nearly 64% respondents are not changing their bus type while booking.

Nearly 36% respondents are changing their bus type while booking.

38.78% respondents are preferring Abhibus for their bookings and 34.69%
respondents are preferring Redbus for their bookings and remaining
websites are preferred by passengers in minimal percentages.

Paytm occupies the third position in their preferred website with in short
span of time. Paytm will become a major competitor for the remaining
websites in the near future.

Ease of booing and providing more offers is the main reason for prefeering
that particular websites by the respondents.

Naerly 58% respondents come to know about their preferred websites are
through internet.and 38% through friend .

70.83% respondents are saying that very late refud is the main problem
faced by them.

In reasons for booking online they are simply telling that is easy for
booking about it and they also prefer online because they are facing some
problem booking by offline.

About discounts none of the respondents have received any discount from
operators.

SUGGESTIONS

Improve the speed of the server

Provide more offers or cashbacks to grab customers or encourage

customers to travel in bus during nonpeak hours.

Reduce the time to refund the money when the ticket got cancelled.

Reduce the service charges and Reservation charges to grab the more
customers

Reduce the cancellation charges

Try to introduce the tracking services to track a bus exact place. It will
increase the hits of the website and also increase the number of users for
our website.

Have a tie ups with e-wallets to encourage digital banking system.

Inform the location of the bus to passenger before 30 minutes of the

Departure time.

Have a tie ups with insurance companies by charging lower premium for
the passenger. It will easily bring more number of passengers to utilise our
website.

CONCLUSION
Finally we can conclude this survey with some key points.
They are majority of respondents are preferring RTC to travel from one place
to another place. Majority of people choosing RTC because of safety
precautions taken by RTC. Lot of respondents are booking their tickets
through Airbus portal. Many respondents saying that very late refund is the
main problem facing when ticket got cancelled. Many respondents are
suggesting increase the cashback offers and discounts during non peak times.

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