Rising airfares have made air travel a luxury again. It’s time to take out those packed tiffins, books and iPods for long train and bus journeys. While websites like IRCTC help book train tickets, bus travel industry still remains very scattered and unorganized. Ticketvala comes to the rescue of travelers by tying up with bus operators to provide bus ticket bookings online.

Ticketvala connects over a 100 Indian cities and towns. One can book tickets for up to four people. The navigation is pretty simple with the booking form and ticket availability in hot sectors displayed in the home page. Based on the options provided by bus operators registered with Ticketvala, users can either book tickets online using debit/credit cards or they can reserve tickets online and then few days later make the payment manually and get the actual tickets from the booking centers.

Ticketvala connects over a 100 Indian cities and towns. One can book tickets for up to four people. The navigation is pretty simple with the booking form and ticket availability in hot sectors displayed in the home page. Users can either book tickets online or over phone through a toll free number provided.

Bus operators registered with Ticketvala provide two types of options to book tickets. Some operators allow booking and payment to be made directly online using debit or credit card. Few others display availability position and the user has to provide contact details to which the customer care executives will get back to carry forward the booking process.

There are user-friendly options like choosing from various pickup points in each city, seating options, type of bus and the timing. What I liked about the site was, for people who do not have a printer at home, there is an option of receiving mTickets, or tickets as SMS on mobile phone. Given the deep penetration of mobile phones in the country mTickets is a great option for users.

What provides Ticketvala an edge over other similar bus ticket booking sites like Raj Travels or KPN Travels is that there is no need to be a member or have a login ID. One can just go to the site check availability, book tickets, make the payment and close the page.

The main revenue source for Ticketvala, according to its CEO Haranath Lokanadham, is the commission from operators. Coming with over 20 years experience in Electronics and Telecommunication industry, this entrepreneur feels that a lot of new similar booking sites have emerged and it is still early days to talk about competition.

Ticketvala also provides services across the board like car hiring, bus hiring and hotel bookings, for the business and leisure traveler. Mr. Lokhanadham is also planning to expand operations by tying up with budget hotels for online booking.

The pan Indian presence of Ticketvala covering over a 100 cities and towns across the country is also a huge advantage compared to region specific booking sites like KPN Travels or Redbus.