59% people in Bengaluru plan bus travel post-lockdown: Survey

Bengaluru, May 18 (IANS) At least 59 per cent of the people in Bengaluru are planning to travel within a month of the lifting of travel restrictions due to COVID-19 pandemic, a new survey revealed on Monday.

Online bus ticketing platform redBus conducted a randomised online study on over 6,700 customers in south India and found people are planning intercity bus travel within a month after lockdown ends.

The survey was conducted among customers from the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Only five per cent of the respondents were willing to postpone their travel to over six months while the rest had plans to travel within that period, it said.

“The large number of people waiting to travel not only points to the need but also the importance it has for the revival of economic activity as very few of them would be travelling for leisure,” Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus, said in a statement.

There is a high standard of expectation on the implementation of measures to make buses safe for travel, with over 81 per cent wanting deep cleaning and sanitisation of buses after every trip.

The survey revealed that over 80 per cent of the respondents want the implementation of hygienic conditions at boarding points and 69 per cent want social distancing protocols to be implemented at boarding points.

The study showed that passengers in Bengaluru put a very high consideration on hygiene, sanitation and disinfection – over 76 per cent – and social distancing (63 per cent ) and much lower consideration to traditional factors such as travel cost (24 per cent), comfort (19 per cent) and punctuality (16 per cent).

–IANS

bu/na