Click Moment | We wanted to make life easier for intercity travellers: Manish Rathi, Co-founder, and CEO, RailYatri.in

When we came up with the idea of RailYatri, we had a singular vision in mind. We wanted to make the lives of the Indian intercity train traveller easier by helping them decide on the right train based on seat availability and train running performance.

Our platform helped them decide on the right train and book the tickets seamlessly, but we still saw that more than 1 million travellers could not get confirmed seats against the wait-listed tickets.

We found that almost 86% of the trains have waitlisted passengers as many as 10 days before the journey. So if you’re planning a journey 10 days prior to travel, confirmed tickets rarely happen. Hence, we decided to add buses from operators across the country so that waitlisted travellers can book buses on our platform.

This change made us aware of the fact that while most trains are overbooked, buses were operating at 65% capacity at best.

We started asking questions of travellers and our families, trying to figure out why they were so averse to using a bus as an alternative when trains were not available. The single largest factor that kept travellers away from the buses is the lack of lavatories, something that is available on every train.

The travellers also said inconsistent service levels, lack of security, and un-informed delays by operators further made them not want to opt for buses.

That’s when it clicked that a standardized fleet of buses with on-board washrooms can make the lives of travellers smoother.

We thus conceptualized and created a business plan of a branded fleet of buses with service assurance and on-board washrooms.

IntrCity Smartbuses are a feasible alternative for train travellers who are waitlisted. We are the pioneers in creating a true integrated multi-modal transportation network and the response from customers has set us on an aggressive growth path.