India’s online bus travel industry came of age today with www.makemytrip.com buying Ticketvala, which is one of the three prominent bus ticket providers. Other incumbents – redbus.in and travelyaari.com will be encouraged with the developments.

The online bus industry has the hard task of converting bus operators , which have traditionally been late adapters of technology, into online suppliers of inventory. They have accomplished this by building a ground up network of sales agents and a robust technology platform, letting the bus operators also share their call centre and booking platform for online bookings.

A bus traveler in India can now look forward to searching and booking a bus ticket online, selecting his seats and getting his booking ID as a text message onto his mobile phone, in a matter of minutes. Travelyaari, for example, guarantees 100% available bus inventory – so every seat on the website is available and ready to be booked.

Here’s to better value to the Indian bus traveler (and to higher valuations of course!)