Travelyaari offers cashless ticket, food bookings for bus travellers

To attract more travellers, online bus booking portal Travelyaari is widening ways in which tickets can be bought — such as tying up with RJio Money and MobiKwik, and building in more intelligence in the dynamic pricing model.

The company, which is into bookings of bus, hotels and tour packages, is also looking to collaborate with cabbies, cab aggregators and hotels.

“We are tying up with players such as Travelkhana, Swiggy and organised players to ensure quality food is delivered to travellers,” Aurvind Lama, Director and Co-founder, Travelyaari, told BusinessLine .

At present, Travelyaari books 1.5-2 lakh tickets on an average on a daily basis, with an average value of ticket priced at ₹1,000.

The company has tied up with 8,000-9,000 outlets, where people can buy tickets using the Paytm wallet. “This system — of using wallets at offline stores — helps customers deal with lack of mobile data network issues,” Lama said.

The use of non-cash methods, such as debit and credit cards, SBI Buddy, Freecharge, Paytm, Jio, IdeaMoney, MobiKwik, and wallets at offline stores, have seen a 25 per cent growth since November 8, when demonetisation was announced. The company said it was also in the process of exploring the UPI-based payment system, but felt that banks were not ready for it yet as some changes are required in their servers.

Price range While the average price of tickets booked on Travelyaari is ₹1000, the per ticket price ranges from ₹200 to ₹2,000, depending on the sitting arrangement, distance, AC/non-AC buses and make of the buses.Broadly, the buses for which bookings are made are of three kinds —Volvo, Mercedes and Scania in the premium segment, mid-premium and normal AC and non-AC buses from firms such as Tata, Isuzu, Ashok Leyland, Corona and Swaraj Mazda. The premium segment buses cost about ₹1.5 crore, AC segment buses cost ₹40-60 lakh and the non-AC segment buses cost ₹30 lakh, approximately.

The firm lists 3,500 bus operators on its Web site and 2,000 on its platform and the average price of tickets per kilometre —with the Volvos charging ₹3 or over ₹3/km; AC buses charging ₹2.5/km, and non-AC buses ₹1.5-2/km.

On dynamic pricing, Lama said it is localised with many players seeking a premium for the brands they had built, such as VRL logistics in the South; Saini Travels, Paulo Travels, Rishabh Travels and Kalpana Travels in West India and Shatabdi Travels, Indo-Canadian, Himachal Tourism in the North.

There are also operators such as Hans Travels on the Indore-Pune route that advertises “buses with ladies toilets” or attached washrooms. Some buses have also started charging higher for preferred seats or lower berths.

Dynamic pricing Travelyaari, however, feels its tools on dynamic pricing and collaboration will bring in disruption, pushing people toward bus transportation.

“We help bus operators in defining route, collection, settlement, apart from sharing the list of passengers before a trip. We build in tools for transporters to do dynamic pricing. And it is up to the operators to configure the prices accordingly,” he added.

The company has also tied up with TATA AIG insurance to devise bundled products where passengers could book for “another trip against bus cancellation” instead of only accident insurance. This service ensures that in case a trip is cancelled, the booked passengers gets to make the trip in a bus with an equal service level or higher service.

Bundled insurance Only 14-15 per cent people opt for accident insurance, as per industry average, but with the bundled insurance scheme, 50 per cent of passengers have started agreeing to pay ₹20 extra per ticket.

The company also takes an undertaking from operators stating that they will adhere to all regulatory requirements, said Lama, adding that Travelyaari is also working to get into short-distance inter-city travel, of about 30 km.

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