Most of us like to travel to different places for work purposes, vacations, or to explore different locations. A lot of people still love traveling by bus. Earlier, traveling by bus was not a pleasant experience. But today everything has changed with the emergence of technology and high-performing apps. Bus ticket booking has been easier through the bus ticket booking mobile app and no more waiting in queues to get your tickets.
With the advancement in technology, bus operators are collaborating with popular travel booking platforms to offer seamless bus ticket booking apps and services.
If you are running a bus service business and want to build a bus ticket mobile app, this blog would be helpful to know about the features, cost, tech stack, etc. So, let us dive into the details
Bus Ticket Booking App – How does it work?
A bus ticket booking app is a system that helps passengers to book and buy tick ets online.
These apps help passengers to book a bus ticket from anywhere and anytime. Also, they can check the availability of seats, compare prices, pay online and schedule routes.
For any issues, the riders can connect to the support team of the app to get the problem resolved.
With bus ticket apps, people are enjoying convenient and comfortable journeys. The apps have all user details stored in the system like bus, reservation details, etc. The passengers can also check the bus type, departure time, ratings, amenities in the bust, etc
Statistics and Market size of Bus ticket booking app
- According to the reports of Statista, the revenue generated through bus journeys is estimated to be $16.8B in 2022 and will grow at the rate of 9.10% annually. It is expected to reach $53.6B by 2026.
- Also, public transportation turns out to be cost-effective for the riders and saves around $6000 annually.
- The intercity market for buses in India has seen a huge transformation and offered comfortable rides to the riders and is predicted to reach $15B plus in the future.
- Redbus, one of the popular bus booking app is serving around 10M passengers in India
- The research says that electric buses will contribute to carbon emission reduction to 1.5 Gigatons/year by 2050.
Popular Bus Ticket Booking Mobile Applications
- MakeMyTrip
- RedBus
- Goibibo
- AbhiBus
- ClearTrip
Elements for building an efficient Bus Ticket Booking Mobile App
Enable travelers to select Pickup and Drop locations
It is one of the prominent elements that would help you offer maximum flexibility to the users. Helping your users select the pickup and drop location will boost user engagement.
Enable Co-Traveler system
At times people prefer traveling with a co-traveler of preferred gender, especially when they are traveling alone. So, offering the facility to the users to choose a co-traveler of the same gender or the gender of their preference can help you offer an amazing user experience.
Mention the details for passengers onboard
When passengers board the bus, the operator or the bus driver should give some crucial information to the riders who board the bus. The information can be related to bus routes, food availability, etc. So, this information can also be conveyed through your app in real-time.
Let passengers review & rate
It is one of the vital elements that gain the trust of new users. Yes, let the passengers post a review & rate the operators they have accessed the services through your app. The reviews are also helpful for new users who want to travel for the first time through certain bus services. This will help you build the credibility of your app and gain online recognition as well.
Focus on Security and Safety of the Passenger
This element cannot be overlooked and make sure that the details of the customers are secure on your app. Most bus ticketing apps enable online payments for the users, so make sure these payments are secure and the payment details of the users are kept confidential on your app against online fraud.
Offer Travel Insurance
Offering travel insurance is a normal facility. So, make sure your bus ticket booking app offers travel insurance to the riders. It will boost the popularity of your app.
Essential Features of a Bus Ticket Booking App
The bus ticket booking app is divided into 3 different panels to help each user group. Let us have a look at the 3 panels and the features under each panel
Passenger Panel
- Check out top cities, top routes and offers
- Registration/Login
- Online payment through multiple modes
- Secure login
- Manage profile
- Track bus live location
- Search availability of bus by destination, source, stops, date range
- Multicurrency payment support
- View buses available with distinct transport companies
- Ask for customer support
- Graphical Map to view booked and available seats
- Sort and filter different buses by dropping and boarding spots, amenities, fare, seats available and time
- Store money in the digital wallet
- Choose seat and book tickets
- Request refund or cancel tickets
- Print & download tickets through email and app
- Buy vouchers to share with friends and family
- Option to choose ticket types
- Share with friends to earn reward points
- Automated reminder for boarding bus
- View package details (travel, stay, add-on) and select seat
- Fare calculator as per boarding & dropping points
- Search tourist destination packages and offers
- Avail loyalty points
- Write reviews & feedback
- Home delivery for tickets
- Push notifications regarding booking confirmation via email and SMS
- Enquire about bus booking via call and email
Travel Agency Panel
- Create/Manage profile
- Registration & safe login
- Manage Ticket scanning
- Push Notification & alerts
- View Sales summary
- On Dashboard view total bookings, refunds, total revenue
- Handle bus routes & booking
- Check real-time passenger boarding
- Reporting and analytics
- Live bus tracking
- Manage scanning of ticket booking
- View Customer reviews & ratings
- Create/Manage tourist packages
Admin Panel
- Manage profile
- Register and Secure Login
- Check admin dashboard
- Push Notifications
- Manage email & SMS marketing
- Payment gateway integration
- Manage user permission
- Manage users & travel agency/operators
- Manage ad promotions & affiliate partners
- CMS and CRM integration
- Live bus tracking
- Create/Manage vouchers and discounts
- Manage Customer reviews & ratings
- Handle transactions & billing
- Manage commissions and ticket types
- Manage ticket refunds & cancellations
Advance Features for Bus Ticket Booking App Development
- Real-time Bus Tracking
- Social Signup or login
- Push Notifications
- Validation of tickets via QR Code
- Real-Time Seat Check
- CRM Integration
- Chat Support
- In-App Calendar Integration
- Marketing and Promotion Tools
- Loyalty Program
- 3rd party Hotel and Taxi Booking
- Real Analytics & Dashboard
- In-App Navigation
Tech Stack in Bus Booking App Development
- Push Notifications –Push.io, Twilio
- Payments –, Stripe, eWallet, Braintree and PayPal, Net Banking
- Mobile OS –iOS, Android
- Database- Hbase, MongoDB, Postgres, Cassandra, MailChimp Integration
- SMS, Voice, & Phone Verification –Twilio, Nexmo
- Cloud Environment –Google, AWS, Azure
- 3rd Party API Integration –Cabs, Hotel
- Realtime Analytics –Spark, IBM, Hadoop, Apache Flink, BigData, Cisco
Team structure required for creating Ticket Booking Mobile App
If you are planning for online booking app development for your bus services, then you need to launch a feature-packed, interactive, responsive, and high-performing app. This is possible only through the expertise of a dedicated team having enough experience in building on-demand apps.
You need the following tech-professional in your team to build an efficient app
- App Developers
- Project Manager
- App Designers
- Testers & QA Analysts
Estimated cost to build your Bus Ticket Booking Mobile Application
The app development cost for building a bus ticket booking app depends on several factors like
- Platform selected to develop the app – Android/iOS or both
- Number of app features and functionalities
- UI/UX design
- Tech-stack
- Third-party integrations
- No hours invested in app development
- Location of the app development company
The above factors determine the cost of bus ticket booking mobile app and the development team you hire would assess your app requirements to offer you a quote.
Final Words
If you have a fleet of buses and want to boost your business, then launching your bus ticket booking app is the perfect idea for you.
All you need to do is to hire an expert mobile application development company to get a feature-loaded app that matches your business needs.
Q Dev, a reputable mobile app development company can be your trusted tech partner to help you launch your bus ticket booking app with robust features and functionalities. Our dedicated app developers are aware of the latest tools and technologies that help you get a scalable ticket booking app. Connect with us to share your app requirements.