Catch the bus!

Making travel plans within the state and do not have the time to go and get the bus tickets for the journey? Not to fret. There is a website to the rescue – travelyaari.com. This portal sells bus tickets directly to the traveller and has grown as one of the largest online bus ticket booking Web sites in the country.

The site was started in 2007 by a budding entrepreneur, Aurvind Lama, who holds a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Allahabad and is an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad. And his partner,  Parthasarathi Sinha, who is an IITian and IIM Ahmedabad. They launched this portal at a time when redbus.in was already doing well. But what set them apart was they tried to create a solution that would enable a better customer experience while functioning as both retailer and distributor.  They built an online end-to-end integrated platform to connect all stakeholders of the bus transport industry- from bus operators to agents, while also making the booking process painless for the passengers. More importantly, it created transparency in this entire booking system, by making a real time bus inventory for online booking.

It would be naïve to assume that a portal will be able to solve all the woes of the bus transport system but at least it is a beginning. Those on the lower rung, who do not have internet access or have limited access will still depend on touts and will need to physically go and book the tickets. But for most like us, booking tickets for Shirdi or Goa should be much easier.