After online flight and train bookings, now bus tickets for country-wide travel too can be reserved through the internet. Recently, a Bangalore-based company has come up with internet booking of bus tickets in different states.

Travel services company Via on Thursday announced that it will power online bus inventory enabling customers to book tickets to travel from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa and Punjab to cities such as Delhi, Chennai etc.

Via director Amit Aggarwal told a press conference here that travel agents and customers can book tickets through credit cards and generate e-tickets as done in flight and train reservation. Via (formerly Flight Raja) also announced partnership with Indo-Canadian Transport Company, Vivek Travels and Sree Kaleshwari Travels located in Punjab, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh, respectively. This would help travellers to book their tickets from any part of the world. Customers will get SMS alerts also.

Indo-Canadian Transport Company MD Satwant Singh and Vivek Travels MD Vivek Bhatia said the bookings would be based on real-time fares which means customers booking their tickets in advance would stand to get discounts.

Via (viajustgo.com) is the first of its kind in India which offers bus operators the convenience of directly hosting and managing their inventory online as well as the facility to directly sell their tickets to the customers. Via recently secured a $ 5 million funding from NEA Indo-US Ventures to expand its services. Via also does bookings of flights, car rentals, holiday packages etc.