Indian online bus ticketing platform redBus has said that more than 300,000 bus bookings were made during the October 3 extended weekend.
The maximum number of these bookings were made from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and West Bengal. Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Ahmedabad remained the top destinations to travel.
The company had also said it has witnessed 50 percent jump in the traffic in the month of October as inter-state restriction has been lifted in the Unlock 5 guidelines.
Earlier, restriction on interstate bus operations was lifted in May but bus operations remained staggered in many states.
According to the company, the busiest routes from where the services have begun are Bengaluru-to-Hyderabad, Delhi-to-Chandigarh, Hyderabad-to-Vijayawada, Asansol-to-Kolkata and Gorakhpur-to-Delhi.
As Mint reported, the company has seen increased bus bookings from the Tier II and Tier III cities with most booking demands coming from Jaipur, Gorakhpur, Indore, Visakhapatnam, Kalaburagi, Rajkot, Malda and Guwahati accounting for 67 percent of the current bookings.
The company has also witnessed the number of bookings made by first-time customers on its platform from 11 percent before COVID-19 to 21 percent post-COVID-19.
"We expect this trend to continue with increase in economic activity, further relaxation in locked-down activities, the upcoming festive season and also when colleges/universities reopen. On many routes, we have also seen a substitution of demand moving from trains to buses," redBus CEO Prakash Sangam, said in a statement.
For the safety of its passengers, redBus introduced strict safety protocols wherein passengers can check pictures of the safety measures taken in the bus before making the booking.
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