Know how to start bus ticket booking app development

Bus ticket booking app development can be your next best business option if you want great returns on your investment. 

As many passengers prefer booking their tickets online. Many entrepreneurs have already entered this business to make great profits by providing online ticket booking services for passengers. But what is the perfect way to build and launch your bus ticket booking app?

Know all the steps, app development tools, and monetization options for app launching. But first, let’s first know the reasons and benefits users are getting from online ticket booking apps.  

What benefits do users get from the bus ticket booking app?

Booking a bus ticket online gives more benefits than visiting a travel agency’s office. Let’s check what advantages users are getting from the bus ticket booking app.

1. All time available

The passengers can book their bus seats anytime with the help of the ticket booking app. Also, there is no need for passengers to visit the office of a travel agency to book bus tickets.

2. Discounts and offers

Due to the high competition between bus ticket booking apps, almost every online ticket booking service is offering discounts and offers on their platform. Discounts & offers give passengers a great way to save money when booking bus tickets.

3. Hassle-free process

Passengers can quickly book bus tickets from the app without needing to reach the offices of travel agencies. Moreover, the app users can get a full view of seats that are available for booking in the bus ticket booking app. 

A complete view of available seats gives users better options for selecting seats based on their preferences. Also, the users can pay online for booking seats and can get tickets delivered to their homes.

4. Rating and reviews

The app users can explore all the ratings and reviews of all buses of different travel agencies. Ratings and reviews help users to select the best travel agency for booking seats to have a great travel experience.

5. Provides journey details 

The bus ticket booking apps give information to users about upcoming routes, bus facilities, journey schedules, and other things relevant to the passengers’ journeys. Also, the bus ticket booking app alerts the users through SMS and email before the bus departure time by the given pickup location.

Understand the different ways to monetize your ticket booking app for selecting the preferable way to make money from your app.

Ways to monetize your bus ticket booking app 

The most popular app monetization methods are given as follows:

1. Featured Listings

You can take a commission from other businesses on each booking made by customers through your app by offering different hotel and taxi booking options. It will be better for you to partner with different restaurants and hotels to promote their services on your app. Whenever the users do booking in other business services through your app, you will get a commission on the profits that your partnered businesses will make through your app.

2. Advertisement in your app 

Another way to monetize your app is to include ads for different brands on your app and charge them in return. Also, you can run the ads by integrating your app with other ad networks such as Google Admob.  

3. Paid apps

The paid app is the next best option for monetizing your app. You can set the pricing of your app for allowing your users to download the app. The downloading price can be set by doing research on your business competitor.

4. Subscription model

You can provide a bus ticket booking service to your customers by offering a subscription. The subscription can be provided based on a monthly and annual basis. The subscription model can give you a consistent source of income as compared to all the discussed methods for your app monetization.  

Check the list of features you must include in your bus ticket booking app.

Features you can add to your bus ticket booking app.

Make sure your bus ticket booking app must have the list of features that are given below:

1. Social signup 

Allowing the users to make their profile on your app through their social media account helps them to avoid a time-consuming user registration process. Try to include social media integration of different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. 

2. Push notifications 

You can provide all the latest updates to your user regarding your offers through push notifications such as the status of their bus booking, the latest offers, and so on. Push notification also increases user engagement in your app.   

3. Live bus tracking 

You can add this feature in your app to provide the latest update regarding the status of the bus they have booked for their journey. Also, you can include map & GPS integration so the users can track bus location in their journey to estimate the remaining time that the bus will need to reach the specific place.   

4. Real-time booking check 

Users can check the available seats in real-time from this feature which can help them to pick the seat of their preferences, such as the seats located in the front row or near the window. You can use APIs of the different travel agencies for displaying real-time information related to available bus seats for booking. 

5. CRM integration 

You can allow third-party apps to connect with your app to expand the app functionality and provide a better experience for booking bus tickets in your app. 

6. Chat support

You can always provide support to your customers by allowing them to chat with your team members regarding any issue while booking bus tickets. Chat support will improve the app experience of your customers making them choose your app every time for booking bus tickets. 

7. In-app calendar integration 

You can integrate a calendar in your app, through which you can remind users about the updates regarding their journey in upcoming days. 

8. Bus route information

The app user will be able to know the route that the bus will take during the journey. The route information will help users to select the right bus for their journey in accordance with the route selection having better infrastructure.   

9. Third-party hotel and taxi booking integration 

You can make extra profits by taking a commission from each successful hotel and taxi booking made through your bus ticket booking app. Try to include the services of popular restaurants that will come during traveling. 

10. Multiple payment modes

You can integrate multiple third-party payment services into your app to allow users to pay through their preferred way of payment. Multiple payment options give app users more comfortability to access bus ticket booking services from your app.  

Know more about starting a bus ticket booking app development. Let’s check the list of features that you must include in your ticket booking app.

General features of bus ticket booking app

Here is a quick overview of all the features you can add to your bus ticket booking app:

1. Passenger panel

• User registration and login
• Multiple options for online payment
• User profile management
• Ask for customer support
• Representation of booking and available set
• Refund or canceling tickets
• Track the live location of the bus
• Digital wallet 
• Print and download tickets via app and email 
• Automatic reminder for boarding bus 
• Reviews and feedback feature 
• Ticket delivery at home

2. Travel agency panel

• User registration and login
• Push notification
• Travel alert
• Manage ticket booking 
• On dashboard view for total bookings and refunds
• Reports and Analytics
• Live bus tracking 
• A real-time passenger onboarding
• Create and manage user profile

3. Admin panel

• Register and secure login
• Profile management
• Push notifications
• Admin dashboard
• Email & SMS marketing
• Payment gateway integrations
• Live bus tracking
• Manage customers’ reviews and ratings
• Manage commissions and ticker types
• Manage ticker refund and cancellations
• Manage billing and transactions

Let’s check the best examples providing bus ticket booking services to their customers for taking ideas and inspiration for your business.

Top apps providing the best bus ticket booking service 

Watch our video to explore the best bus ticket booking platforms.

Top-listed bus ticket booking platforms are given as follows:

1. RedBus

RedBus is one of the biggest booking platforms. The platform operates in 6 countries: India, Malaysia, Peru, Columbia, Indonesia, and Singapore. 

The platform provides many excellent services to their passengers to ensure their safety, such as the staff performing thermal screening and temperature checks of the passenger. Also, all the buses are sanitized to ensure that passengers can experience a healthy and safe environment on the bus.

Moreover, RedBus offers a great feature known as “Track my bus”, through which users can get the exact location of the bus in real-time.

Started in	2006
App downloads	1M
App ratings	4.5
Available platforms	Android & iOS
Corporate headquarters	India
Founders	Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju, Sudhakar Pasupunuri
Revenue	$110M

2. Wanderu

The platform allows users to book bus flights; rental cars and train tickets. Wanderu operates in countries of North America and Europe. The platform provides various pricing options for booking bus tickets based on facilities provided by the different modes of transportation.

Started in	2012
App downloads	100K
App ratings	4.5
Available platforms	Android & iOS
Corporate headquarters	United states
Founders	Igor Bratnikov, Polina Raygorodskaya
Revenue	$100M

3. Megabus

The platform is also one of the best bus booking platforms that operate across the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. The passenger must select the starting and final destination of their journey when booking tickets on the Megabus. All the buses are sanitized to ensure the health-safety of the passengers.

Started in	2006
App downloads	500K
App ratings	3.5
Available platforms	Android & iOS
Corporate headquarters	United states
Founders	Stagecoach
Revenue	$992M

4. Rome2Rio 

The platform is just not limited to booking bus tickets. Rome2Rio also offers tickets for flights and trains also. Whenever the passengers select the traveling location they want to reach, the platform instantly displays all the travel and booking options for passengers.

Started in	2010
App downloads	1M
App ratings	4.8
Available platforms	Android & iOS
Corporate headquarters	Australia
Founders	Bernhard Tschirren, Michael Cameron
Revenue	$7.4M

5. FlixBus

The platform operates in 35 countries across 2500 + destinations. The platform provides traveling to many European countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, and many more countries. Moreover, the platform offers snacks and drinks, free Wi-Fi, and plug sockets for their passengers on the bus.

Started in	2011
App downloads	10M
App ratings	4.7
Available platforms	Android & iOS
Corporate headquarters	Germany
Founders	Daniel Krauss, Jochen Engert, André Schwämmlein
Revenue	$447M

You can check more bus ticket booking platforms here. 

Check out the list of development tools that you must have at the time of developing your bus ticket booking app.

Tech stack to build a bus ticket-building app

Check out the tech stack required for developing a bus ticket building app:

Hosting	Amazon EC2
Content delivery network	Cloudflare/Amazon CloudFront
Push notification	Twilio, Firebase Mobile os-iOS, Android
SMS, Voice phone notification	Nexmo, Twilio
Payments	Paypal, EWallets, Netbanking
Email	MailChimp Integration
Database	HBase, Cassandra, MongoDB
Email	MailChimp Integration
Messaging queues	AWS Simple Queue System
API Integration of 3rd Party companies	Cab companies & Hotel brands
Load balancer	Nginx
Code repository	Git
Caching	Hazelcast
UI	ReactJS, BootStrap JS
Map Navigation	Google Map
Real-time analytics	Hadoop, Spark, Apache Flink, Cisco, IBM

Start bus ticket booking app development with Idea Usher!

There are lots of opportunities to make significant profits and returns on your investment by building your platform for booking bus tickets.

If you want the best app development team for building your bus ticket booking app, then you can contact Idea Usher. Our team has created feature-packed and fully-functional apps along with an excellent app user interface for our clients. 

Contact Idea Usher to let us know how we can help you for starting and expanding your bus ticket booking business from our free consultation. 

Contact us:

Email:

[email protected]

Phone:

(+1)732 962 4560

(+91)859 140 7140

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is a bus ticketing system?

A.The online bus ticketing system allows customers to book bus seats from different travel agencies from their app. The online booking system has multiple features to help passengers for having ease in booking seats, such as 

• Various modes of online payments
• An overview of available bus seats for booking
• Informing users about the status of booking their seats  

Q. What are the advantages of online reservation system?

A. The business owner gets the following advantages:

• The business can target a large user base using the internet to book bus tickets. 
• There are multiple earning options for online ticket booking businesses.
• Business owners can expand their business on a large scale through the internet. 
• Almost all passengers prefer booking tickets giving a better chance for subsetting your online business.

Q. How do I create a bus booking app?

A. You can create a bus booking app by adding the following features to your app:

• Provide social media login
• Include multiple payment options
• Add GPS integration
• Enable Real-Time Seat Availability
• Include chatting option for customer support
• Offer ticket authentication via OTP