India’s Intercity Bus Sector Carries 140 Million Travellers in Six Months, Records Twenty-Five Per Cent Growth: redBus BusTrack Report

redBus Reports Semi-Annual Industry Growth

redBus, the online bus ticketing platform, has released its latest BusTrack Report covering the Indian intercity bus industry for the current financial year between April and September 2025. The report states that intercity buses carried more than 140 million passengers, a 25 per cent increase over the same period last year. A total ticketing value of ₹132 billion was recorded across more than six thousand active private operators. Sleeper and hybrid buses accounted for 85 per cent of all journeys, while AC services accounted for 71 per cent, reflecting a clear shift towards comfort-based travel. The report presents data only for private bus operators.

According to the findings, more than 6.7 lakh unique routes connect over 11,000 towns, indicating a rise in road connectivity as a preferred mobility mode for medium- and long-distance travel. The expanding route network also shows deeper penetration across smaller towns and villages, supporting the broader reach of organised intercity travel.

AC services accounted for 71 per cent of all seats sold, while close to 65 per cent of routes extended beyond 250 kilometres, pointing to a shift towards long-haul travel. Maharashtra and Goa accounted for 16 per cent of total seat bookings, followed by Tamil Nadu at 15 per cent, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at 12 per cent, and Karnataka at 11 per cent. Seat occupancy across India stood at seventy-six per cent, with Andhra Pradesh and Telangana recording the highest fill rate at eighty-four per cent, while Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh recorded sixty-three per cent.

Based on redBus bookings, travellers aged 18 to 36 years accounted for the largest segment, nearly two-thirds of total bookings. Male passengers accounted for 65 per cent of all travellers. Sixty-one per cent of bookings originated from smaller towns and cities. At the same time, India’s top six metros accounted for thirty-three per cent and other state capitals accounted for six per cent.

Prakash Sangam, Chief Executive Officer at redBus, said, “In this edition of BusTrack, we have moved from a quarterly to semi-annual format, covering the seasonally lower activity quarter of April-June and the quarter of comparatively higher activity, namely July-September. The market has grown significantly to one hundred and forty million seats sold in April–September this year, up from one hundred and twelve million last year, a solid twenty-five per cent growth. This growth has come on the back of existing bus operators adding inventory, new operators starting businesses on traditional routes, and the digitisation of inventory for long-tail and new routes. There has been a big jump in the number of private bus operators coming online, leading to a significant expansion of the network base in both towns connected, as well as the number of unique bus routes. We also see a clear shift in the preference towards AC buses. In this edition of the report, the spotlight is on Maharashtra, the largest state for bus travel. Maharashtra accounts for 67 per cent of intrastate bus travel. The state shows a higher average seat price of ₹1066; interestingly, this is significantly higher than the pan-India average ticket price. Maharashtra also shows a healthy bus occupancy of seventy-nine per cent.”

The full report is available on the redBus blog and includes state-wise analyses of route preferences, booking windows, seasonal patterns and traveller behaviour.