Manish Rathi, CEO and Co-Founder of IntrCity SmartBus, discusses the company’s transformative journey in India’s intercity travel sector. From achieving 70% revenue growth through tech-driven strategies to empowering traditional operators and integrating multimodal travel via RailYatri, Rathi highlights the innovations and trends shaping the industry. With a focus on reliability, comfort, and customer-centric mobility, IntrCity is redefining long-distance travel, particularly for Bharat’s growing Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets, setting new benchmarks for the future of intercity mobility.
What key strategies drove IntrCity’s 70% revenue growth and sustained profitability?
Our profitability and 70% YoY revenue growth stem from a clear focus on tech-led operations, product standardization, and customer experience. By prioritizing both scale and efficiency, we’ve built a SmartBus platform that delivers value for both passengers and operators. A 10x increase in adjusted EBITDA underscores how our made-in-India approach combining safety, reliability, and hospitality—has helped us scale profitably. We’ve been disciplined with our unit economics while expanding our fleet and services across 630+ routes in 16 states, proving that the intercity travel market in India is ready for transformation when built on strong fundamentals.
How do you empower traditional bus operators with technology and standardization?
IntrCity’s ecosystem is designed to help traditional operators run smarter businesses. Our partners benefit from full-stack tools like the operator dashboard, crew app, and IoT-enabled fleet analytics, which offer real-time insights into occupancy, performance, and compliance. This operational transparency, combined with structured SOPs and a consistent service experience, enables better yield, improved asset utilization, and predictable revenue. Operators are not just joining a platform, they’re becoming part of a reliable, tech-first travel network backed by a trusted brand.
How does RailYatri’s 14 million users help integrate intercity bus and train travel?
RailYatri plays a vital role in unifying India’s fragmented long-distance travel experience. With over 14 million monthly users, it gives us unique visibility into train passenger behavior and intercity travel demand. This data enables us to design seamless multimodal journeys where travelers can plan and book bus or train trips on a single platform. The integration of SmartBus with RailYatri is creating a connected ecosystem for Bharat, allowing users to shift effortlessly between modes while enjoying consistent quality, convenience, and reliability.
What innovations are planned to improve long-distance travel comfort and convenience?
We are continually enhancing the SmartBus experience to make long-haul travel more dignified and dependable. Over the next two years, we will add 500 new SmartBus vehicles, including more coaches with onboard washrooms. We’re also investing in backend innovation, from predictive maintenance systems to real-time operational control to elevate reliability and minimize disruptions. Clean boarding lounges, trained SmartBus Captains, curated pitstops with hygienic amenities, and tighter SOP monitoring are part of our commitment to deliver consistently high-quality travel at scale.
What major trends will shape India’s intercity travel industry in the next few years?
India’s intercity travel landscape is undergoing a shift, driven by rising expectations around safety, punctuality, and hygiene, especially from travelers in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. The demand is moving from informal, price-only decisions to dignified, dependable travel experiences. The sector is also becoming more organized, with greater adoption of technology, real-time tracking, and data-led decisions. We believe the future will be shaped by standardization of amenities across routes, expansion of services beyond metros into Bharat and growing role of tech in predictive maintenance and customer feedback
IntrCity is at the forefront of these changes, setting benchmarks for reliability, consistency, and customer-centric mobility.
