A year ago, Kapil Raizada and Manish Rathi walked into the office of Prasanna Patwardhan, managing director of inter-state bus service Prasanna Purple Mobility Pvt Limited, and the president of the Bus and Cab Operators Association of India. Raizada and Rathi had co-founded IntrCity Smart Bus—then a month old—and weren’t looking for membership.
No. Instead, they were aiming to bring a chunk of the 20,000-plus inter-city bus operators the association represented onto their platform, by offering a premium service and fixed returns.
IntrCity’s model is to aggregate bus operators, offer a standardised service across all buses, and sell tickets via RailYatri, the online ticketing company from which it was carved out.