A study of pricing policies and scheduling practices in intercity bus services

Abstract

This report studies the pricing and scheduling policies currently being adopted by the KSRTC for its premium bus segment. The aim of the report is to study the current practices and recommend a pricing strategy for the KSRTC in order to improve its market share. During the course of the project, the majority of the research was based upon the tracking of the prices and schedules of various bus operators including KSRTC, Primary interviews conducted with the top management of KSRTC and the study of the demand and booking pattern of the passengers. In this report, we have studied four possible pricing strategies that could be adopted by KSRTC, namely: Demand based pricing, Quota based pricing, Seats based pricing and dual pricing. Of the four, we have recommended the Dual pricing model as the most competent pricing model followed by the seats based pricing model.