redBus records major uptick in bookings for Diwali homecoming

redBus ignites the holiday spirit with the launch of the ‘Download Cash’ festival

Bengaluru: With the year’s festive season reaching its zenith during the long Diwali weekend, demand for intercity travel is at its peak as the nation approaches the festival of lights, indicating strong positive sentiment towards travel. redBus, India’s leading online bus ticketing platform has so far recorded a 30% rise in bookings over the previous year for the Diwali week.

About 42% of the overall bookings this season are from Metro and Tier I cities. redBus is also witnessing strong uptake from tier 2 and 3 cities compared to last year.

Over 2500 bus operators and about 21 Road Transport Corporations are all saddled up to cater to the rising demand by running about 20,000 daily services during the Diwali week. These services are expected to ferry 42.5 lac passengers, across 1 lac+ routes, covering a cumulative distance of 94 crore kilometers over 7 days.

Data from redBus so far indicates Bangalore to be the city with the highest number of travellers moving out.

Accordingly, the top 10 routes in the country this Diwali are as follows:

Top Routes 2021 (to and fro) Top Routes (2020)
Bangalore-Hyderabad-Bangalore

 

Bangalore-Chennai-Bangalore

 

Chennai-Madurai-Chennai

 

Chennai-Coimbatore-Chennai

 

Goa-Pune-Goa

 

Bangalore-Coimbatore-Bangalore

 

Kolkata-Durgapur-Kolkata

 

Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Hyderabad

 

Pune-Nagpur-Pune

 

Chennai-Salem-Chennai

Chennai-Madurai

Bangalore-Hyderabad

Vijayawada-Hyderabad

Pune-Nagpur

Visakhapatnam-Hyderabad

Chennai-Coimbatore

Delhi-Gorakhpur

Asansol-Kolkata

Burdwan-Kolkata

Durgapur-Kolkata

About 65% of the current bookings are for travel within states and the remaining 35% for interstate travel. 72% of the current bookings have been made on Air-Conditioned buses, up from 54% last year.

The top 5 states where redBus is witnessing high demand for travel are Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Gujarat

Within each of these states, the top 3 routes are as follows:

State Routes (to and fro)
Tamil Nadu Chennai-Madurai-Chennai

Chennai-Bangalore-Chennai

Chennai-Coimbatore-Chennai

Maharashtra Pune-Goa-Pune

Pune-Nagpur-Pune

Pune-Mumbai-Pune

Andhra Pradesh + Telangana Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Hyderabad

Hyderabad-Bangalore-Hyderabad

Visakhapatnam-Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam

Karnataka Bangalore-Hyderabad-Bangalore

Bangalore-Chennai-Bangalore

Bangalore-Coimbatore-Bangalore

Gujarat Ahmedabad-Rajkot-Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad-Surat-Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad-Udaipur-Ahmedabad

For Diwali this year, the shortest intercity bus route booked in the country is between Guwahati and Machkhowa in Assam, covering a distance of 4.9 kilometres in 20 minutes and the longest is between Bengaluru and Thalodi (Rajasthan), covering a distance of 2086 kilometres in 37 hours.

Speaking on the occasion, Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus, stated, “We are enthused to witness the positive travel sentiment in the days leading up to Diwali. With almost all of the bus routes opened up for unrestricted movement across the country, the industry is now firmly on its path to overcoming the deficits induced by the pandemic over the last year and a half. Our partner bus operators are geared up to meet this demand revival for the festive period. We fully expect intercity bus ticketing volumes to grow further from here onwards as travel picks up steam with reopening of Universities and the increasing trend of resumption of physical working from office.”