Bus travel and entrepreneurs

Till now, I have traveled through air, rail, buses, taxis, 3-wheelers, 2-wheelers, auto-rickshaw, man-pulled-rickshaw, bikes and even on domestic-animal-pulled carts: all of them serve purposes at some time or other. I was thinking about the places and states of India where I have traveled through bus as a transport. This is a type of varied experiences that I want to share and see whether we can pin down an entrepreneur idea from it.

Because I was born in Punjab, it is obvious that I traveled in Punjab. Right from my childhood, I have traveled using buses but it was during my engineering course that I did it extensively. On daily basis, I traveled around 150 Km from hometown to my college and back. Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali–the tricity was a commonly traveled area in those days.

While visiting Naina Devi, which lies in Himachal Pradesh, I have experienced the fast-beating of heart when the buses take sharp turns on those hilly areas.

Then I started working In Haryana: Gurgaon. I traveled in Delhi and then in Uttar Pradesh when working in Noida. While working in Gurgaon, I got an opportunity to visit Rajasthan and take a bus-travel from Ajmer.

In South India, I traveled in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka but missed bus-traveling in Tamilnadu.

Now, if I have to analyze the ambience of buses in all these states, and I am talking of public transport, I would say, buses in South India offer the best travel. They seem so disciplined and structured.

In Punjab, conductors almost rule the buses. In Delhi, Gurgaon, and Noida, you get heavy overloading of buses. In Himachal, it is more sort of holding your breath. In Rajasthan, it was more sort of a race. However, in South India, it was more surprising as lady-conductors are not found that frequently across India.

Though lots of entrepreneurs run private buses for transport and as traveling fleet also, there is still that can be done in order to make sure they have lesser environmental effect. So, while owning and running buses could be a business idea, do you feel you can do something to make sure they have lesser impact on the environment but still solve transport problems of Indian roads?

Share your experience of traveling in buses and how you like it!