Bus, train passengers optimistic of resuming travel in next three months; priority shifts to safety, hygiene: Survey

Bus and train passengers are optimistic of travel resumption in next three months as opposed to domestic flyers, said a survey report.

A surprisingly majority (38 percent) travellers displayed a high level of optimism regarding the return to normalcy while around 35 percent were unsure about it. Almost 25 percent of the participants believe that it will be a while before life goes back to the way it was, said the report by IntrCity RailYatri, an inter-city mobility network, titled ‘Decoding inter-city traveler sentiments post-COVID'.

The report was based on survey of the train and bus travellers.

Professional or work-related travel takes top priority followed by social travel as opposed to planned holidays. A whopping 71 percent participants indicated a drop in their planned holidays this year.

Commenting on the current customer sentiments, Manish Rathi, CEO & co-founder, IntrCity RailYatri, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the whole inter-city mobility industry in 2020 to come to a halt. Consumer sentiments and preference have changed drastically, health safety becoming the priority for everyone.”

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This survey was aimed at gauging the impact of the lockdown on the intercity mobility space and current customer sentiments around travel. Going forward there will be no single path to reinvention however, businesses will be able to succeed by prioritising three key levers of change: Hygiene and sanitisation, social distancing and leveraging technology

In a pre-COVID-19 market, one of the primary concerns of the travellers was ‘on-time’ journey. However after the global pandemic outbreak, the concern has shifted towards safety and hygiene. Over 70 percent of the respondents in the survey picked either ‘hygiene and sanitation’ or ‘social distancing’ as their top criteria.

Kapil Raizada, co-founder of IntrCity RailYatri, felt it was imperative to understand the needs of the customers.

“The survey has brought forward some very interesting insights in the decision- making pattern of customers in a post COVID market. Our intention behind this activity was to gain deeper insights into the evolving mindset of inter-city traveller. Taking these insights into account, IntrCity RailYatri will be introducing a number of innovations to address the needs of our travellers,” he said.

The survey is a compilation of responses and sentiments of over users across metros, tier-1, and tier-2 cities of India. Conducted between 15 April and 7 May, the survey was rolled out to travelers between the age group of 18 years to 52 years. Findings from the survey were analysed and studied by IntrCity RailYatri’s data insights team