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I dont have any idea about the first two operators, would be interested in knowing about them.

I'd travelled by Kallada G4 sleeper service once, and they stopped in Hosur for 2 hours to collect more passengers and mint more money. Finally, i rounded up some other fellow passengers, went up to them and created a scene following which they kinda got the message.

I have heard good review about KPN, but always thought they operated primarily to TN. Used them when travelling to Chennai once, and booked using their online portal.

As for the routes they offer in Kerala, all of them are not exactly convenient for getting to my place. Pity, though.

I have travelled by Yathra, but the one time i availed their services, the bus came rather late to start from Madivala. Also, i dont think they operate Volvos.

Irony about the whole incident is that a friend of mine who had dropped by my place the day before spoke rather highly of Shama, saying they maintained their time well, and so on. It didnt take us long to change the misconception which we harboured.

By the looks of it, they seem to have built their business model around this whole bundling into other buses theme.

Rukma does offer a decent alternative for me, but i wish they offerred an A/C alternative. With the current simmering heatwave in Kerala, its desperately required. Passengers who shut the windows of the bus in the night are among my biggest enemies.

I had a really bad experience on a Chennai -> Hyderabad service.
Ticket was booked via redbus.in

The worst journey ever.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...tml#post986530

I have had better trips in the general compartment of Charminar Express.

KPN travels stops somewhere near salem(or Erode) in their Petrol Pump where all buses from madras and bangalore comes.they ,then do a 30minutes exercise of transferring the luggages(courier ,I guess) making passengers worry what is happening :|

This is for anyone who may be travelling from mangalore to mumbai by bus never and i say it again never take ANAND travels. This is like a serious warning where i have had bad experiences with them. The first when i had no option but to catch it from mlr to pune and the second time when i got this only option to get to mumbai from dharwad.

Well to put it plainly this bus took 18 hours to get to mumbai from dharwad while its an overnight journey! Am not going to write more as i had to bunk work due to this bus. He loads his bus like a lorry and has the audacity to stop to unload it while the passengers are left fending for themself

I believe this is due to poor service from the bus operators themselves which is responsible for this situation. For a person like me, trains were never even considered earlier, as buses used to do just fine, specially with the advent of the Volvos. Now, i have started to check out availablity on trains if i am able to plan my trip in advance.

Passengers are sparse on weekdays, i admit.

When i am about to board a bus to Kerala, i arrive early at Madivala (from where i usually board teh bus) and have a early dinner at either MAS or Kairali. Good food, and one is also spared of the rubbish which is served at some of the restaurants along the way. During the dinner break, i just hang around the bus.

Bblost, for the Chennai-Hyd route, the APSRTC Volvos are your best bet if you are looking for a bus. They drive decently, and also maintain their punctuality.

30 mins break is still fine. I can live with that, i suppose.

Has happened to me once where i had to eventually opt for a day's leave on a Monday as the bus which was to reach Bangalore at 7AM reached at 10AM! It was a Kallada Volvo.

Did anyone notice they dont play any movies on some of the Kallada Volvos these days? Not that they are obliged to, but it helps to pass some time.

My elder sister had worked in Pune for a couple of months. While coming back to Vadodara, she booked ticket for some operator's Volvo bus from Mumbai.
She was on time to reach the office of that operator in Mumbai. Then on some highway stretch near Mumbai, the bus stopped. Everybody in the bus thought what the hell is this. Then came the response, there was one anti-social element with good reach and contacts. One person who was his subordinate was to board the bus, so the bus was waiting for him for more than two hours.

My sister told us that for the entire route the guy was talking on phone in foul language.

This taught us a lesson. Either go for government bus services or train. In case of train there are very less chances of wrong things happening, thought there are other negatives.

Best is to travel by own vehicle. I am ready to go to any place on my bike or car rather than bus or train.
But in any case avoid the private operators, they are not the best.

I used to travel in busses that travel from Madiwala to Perumbavoor. As i get down at perumbavoor i was never told to get down and take another bus or never had problems of that sort.

Kallada has most number of busses i believe. But all their busses come to Madiwala 30 minutes late. Then the checking of tickets and settling of issues related to multiple booking on same seat takes another 30mins. The bus starts and somewhere on the way to electronic city, they stop to load more luggage in the already packed bus. You wont get an answer if you ask them about the time of reaching the destination. The answer is always - "Depends on checking in Walayar check post". The sleeper busses of Kallada are comfortable and they have neat bed sheets. But most of the normal busses have bed bugs and that makes the travel a night mare. Even if you complain, they dont care about it.

Yatra - Nothing much to say good or bad. They just keep driving on average speed. But once when i travelled, the bus was at perumbavoor for 1 hour bcoz one person boarded a wrong bus and there was confusion regarding the seats.

SPS - Quite a nice service. They also stop for luggage on the way

SC travels - They start from Madiwala and always starts on time. The busses are not that new and they drive really fast(Dont know whether it is just a feeling bcoz of old bus)
KPN - They dont have busses in MC road, but travelled till angamaly once. The service was gud.

Karnataka SRTC- I travelled only once and they were goin through all the bus stands and took 13 hours instead of the normal 11 hours.

Kerala SRTC - Never got a ticket. The new A/C semisleeper looks nice. But the booking starts 5 days before departure and bookign is restricted to few places.

Even SRM travels looks nice and well maintained. But i think all the busses are to Ernakulam or in the Highway.

The common thing with all these busses is that they all stop at the worst hotels for food. And most of them is infected with Bed bugs.

KSRTC (the KA version) operates Rajhamsa services Bangalore to Kottayam. At least two buses are there (have used them Ktym > Trichur).

The situation gets even worse during peak times(Onam/Christmas). They offer special buses, charging full fare and the buses turn out to be ancient relics from some bygone era. Once my wife and in-laws had the misfortune to travel in one to EKM from Bangalore. It was a 3+2 configuration bus, means no reclining seats(Still they have the audacity to charge the same as a 2+2 bus with reclining seats:Shockked:). This bus was very late to start, moved like a snail on an evening stroll and broke down multiple times, causing delays each time and ultimately gave the ghost somewhere near Thrissur. They arranged a spare bus after long delay and it was more than 16-17 hours for a normal 12 hour journey.

The worst part was when their return bus also broke down somewhere near Coimbatore in the middle of the night and passengers were left standing on the side of the road at 2 a.m. in the morning until a spare bus came. So many breakdowns indicate shoddy maintenance to cut costs.

P.S> It is rumored that Kallada buses carry some special 'items' for their main business(the colored liquid one:D). So do some others, as they say the buses are not profitable otherwise. Little checking at the checkpost for these buses also helps.

Puzhekadavil had a good service, but that group ran into some financial problems - they also had a liquor business - I was told that the buses had to be sold to raise "kisth" money - not sure how true it is.

most of the "special" buses via MC road which I travelled are in good condition(normally travel operators rent a bus from the town-either muvattupuzha or perumbavoor).Only Once that I had such a horrible travel in a sisira coach which I boarded from Vyttila princy travels some time back.

The so-called 'special' buses are a joke. They are ill-maintained, and on one of the occassions where i got to use a Kallada Volvo, the A/C hardly cooled. However, we were charged at the full rate!

Its a pity to see how the Kallada service has deteriorated over time.

Puzhakdavil doesnt exist anymore.

I would vouch for this, having used their services since my college days to go to Kerala for vacations.

You are spot on, they ran into a hell lotta financial problems with the owner fleeing the country from creditors. Evading taxes was the main reason quoted, how do I know ?

Their lawyer is a family friend of ours.

I can vouch for KPN's reliability & professionalism. I am yet to come across a bus operator who will move his bus on the dot even if there were only a dozen passengers. I had been to ooty (for a bereavement in the family) a few months back and took the first available KPN. It was a A/C sleeper and there were only 9 passengers in all. It was raining cats & dogs and the roads were more like rivers, it would have been perfectly understandable if he had canceled the service. But they did not. Ended up with another 3 more passengers and that was all. I tried the math, it was definitely not profitable for him to run that service.

Though not interstate, I have seen Bangalore-Mangalore private buses ply with more than half the seats empty. Thats because the bus has to return from the other place, the next day.

Diabloo has already given the reason for the empty bus.
Now coming to KPN's reliability, I have ALWAYS had bad experiences with KPN. For the buses going to Trivandrum, they pick you up in a rickety mini bus from Madiwala and drop you at their office at bommanahalli where you are made to wait for hours for the bus to arrive. I guess they have some tie-up with the hotel guy beside the bommanahalli office since most passengers use this oppertunity to have food from that hotel.
Also, never ever take the KPN bus to trivandrun going via Madurai-Nagarcoil. The bus stops at all the small chandas (markets) enroute and reaches trivandrum only the next afternoon (no stops even for morning tea).
And the worst part about KPN (in my opinion) is that they start blasting some crappy songs early mornings to kill your sleep :Frustrati