Red Bus
redBus: Moving India's Transportation Industry in a New Direction Published : September 23, 2010 in India Knowledge@Wharton
Booking an inter-city bus ticket in India is fairly simple these days. A few clicks on the Internet or a phone call is all it takes to complete a process similar to the one used to purchase airline tickets. The process was very different a few years ago and Phanindra "Phani" Sama learned of its limitations the hard way. The experience got him thinking, turned him into an entrepreneur and changed the way bus ticketing is done in India.
In October 2005, Sama, an engineer working with Texas Instruments in Bangalore, wanted to go to Hyderabad -- some 562 km away -- to spend Diwali, the festival of lights, with his parents. Sama knew the drill. He used to travel by bus from Bangalore to Hyderabad almost every alternate weekend. But on this occasion when Sama reached his travel agent, he hit a brick wall. Being festival season, there was heavy demand; there were no seats available, he was told. Sama was frantic. His parents were expecting him and he didn't want to disappoint them. He went from one travel agent to another but with no luck. He finally ended up spending Diwali by himself.
"I kept thinking that if only I had tried harder and gone to some more agents perhaps I could have managed to get a ticket," says the 29-year-old Sama. More importantly, he wondered why (unlike with airlines and railways) there was no centralized database of bus operators, bus routes and information on availability of seats. Also, why was the information not available on the Internet?
Less than a year later, armed with market research and mentoring from The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bangalore chapter, Sama set out to launch an enterprise that would fill the gaps in India's bus transportation system. He partnered with fellow Birla Institute of Technology & Science-Pilani alumni Charan Padmaraju (then with Honeywell) and Sudhakar Pasupunuri (then with IBM) to set
Booking an inter-city bus ticket in India is fairly simple these days. A few clicks on the Internet or a phone call is all it takes to complete a process similar to the one used to purchase airline tickets. The process was very different a few years ago and Phanindra "Phani" Sama learned of its limitations the hard way. The experience got him thinking, turned him into an entrepreneur and changed the way bus ticketing is done in India.
In October 2005, Sama, an engineer working with Texas Instruments in Bangalore, wanted to go to Hyderabad -- some 562 km away -- to spend Diwali, the festival of lights, with his parents. Sama knew the drill. He used to travel by bus from Bangalore to Hyderabad almost every alternate weekend. But on this occasion when Sama reached his travel agent, he hit a brick wall. Being festival season, there was heavy demand; there were no seats available, he was told. Sama was frantic. His parents were expecting him and he didn't want to disappoint them. He went from one travel agent to another but with no luck. He finally ended up spending Diwali by himself.
"I kept thinking that if only I had tried harder and gone to some more agents perhaps I could have managed to get a ticket," says the 29-year-old Sama. More importantly, he wondered why (unlike with airlines and railways) there was no centralized database of bus operators, bus routes and information on availability of seats. Also, why was the information not available on the Internet?
Less than a year later, armed with market research and mentoring from The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bangalore chapter, Sama set out to launch an enterprise that would fill the gaps in India's bus transportation system. He partnered with fellow Birla Institute of Technology & Science-Pilani alumni Charan Padmaraju (then with Honeywell) and Sudhakar Pasupunuri (then with IBM) to set