zingbus, India’s leading intercity travel platform, is seeing women travellers emerge as a key driver of growth in the luxury intercity bus segment. According to the Redbus Pink Report, Female ridership has grown by over 130% between 2019 and 2025.
This broader industry trend is also reflected on zingbus, where nearly 1 in 3 travellers is a woman. The data points to changing expectations among female travellers, who are increasingly prioritising not only safety but also comfort, convenience and premium travel experiences when travelling.
The shift is particularly evident on zingbus Maxx, the company’s luxury intercity travel offering, where women account for 40 per cent of total ridership, significantly higher than the industry average. Women also contribute a larger share of booking value than their seat share, indicating a strong preference for premium travel experiences.
The data suggests that while safety remains a non-negotiable factor, women are increasingly choosing services that offer enhanced comfort and hospitality. Features such as onboard meals, welcome amenities, and hospitality-trained crew members are emerging as key differentiators.
Solo travel among women reinforces this pattern. Solo bookings by women on the platform have more than doubled over the past year, with the strongest growth seen on overnight routes connecting metro cities to hometowns and leisure destinations. Women aged 22 to 35 represent a growing share of the platform’s female traveller base.
Commenting on the report, Mr. Prashant Kumar, Founder & CEO, zingbus, said, “Women are shaping the next phase of intercity travel in India. The growth we are seeing is not just in the number of women travelling, but in their preference for services that combine safety, comfort, predictability, and quality. The rising adoption of Maxx among women travellers shows that safety is no longer just a baseline expectation; it is central to how premium travel experiences are built.”
zingbus has embedded technology-led safety measures across its network, including AI-enabled safety monitoring, emergency exit visualisation during seat selection, turn-by-turn navigation to boarding points, live GPS tracking that can be shared with emergency contacts, and trained onboard marshals whose performance is monitored through customer feedback and operational metrics.
These features are standard across the platform for all travellers, but the data indicates that women respond particularly strongly to this safety-first approach.
To date, zingbus has facilitated over 10 million journeys across more than 300 cities in 20+ states through partnerships with over 270 operators. The company is also expanding its electric bus fleet across high-demand corridors as part of its commitment to sustainable and customer-centric mobility solutions.
The findings highlight a clear shift in India’s intercity travel landscape: when safety is built into the foundation of the journey, trust follows, and travellers increasingly choose experiences that go beyond reliability to embrace comfort and luxury.
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