Online bus bookings grew 25% in 2025: redBus CEO
The Hindu
Online bus bookings surged 25% in 2025, driven by demand for pilgrimage travel and tier-3 markets, says redBus CEO.
Online bus bookings grew 25% in 2025, redBus CEO Prakash Sangam told The Hindu in an interview, reflecting growing demand for travel that airlines and railways are not able to keep up with as quickly as bus operators, as well as an accelerating shift to digital bookings.
“This includes market expansion that is happening because existing operators have added buses, and also because they’ve digitised a lot of operators who were earlier probably selling offline, but they have been able to digitise sales,” Mr. Sangam said.
“The largest market continued to be Maharashtra,” Mr. Sangam said. Maharashtra is the second most populated State in India, and the third largest by area. The next largest markets for online bus bookings are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, he said. And the majority of seats sold online are air-conditioned: “In terms of the kind of inventory that is being sold, there is a clear trend towards premiumization,” he said. “The contribution of AC buses has gone up from 67% in the first hour of last year to 71%.”
78% occupancy
On average, buses are only plying with a fifth of the seats unsold, Mr. Sangam said, with an “overall occupancy” of 78%. “The key days on which the occupancy is high is again Fridays and Sundays,” he added. 4,000 new buses were added in 2025, he said, of which around 250 were premium Volvo buses, while 3,000 were air-conditioned buses.
“If you take just if you just take the AC market, about 50 to 55% of the market would be then sold online,” Mr. Sangam said.
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