Yatra Setu
A travel and pilgrimage booking platform for India — discover holy sites and cities, book buses or curated packages, pay securely, and carry every ticket in one app. This document specifies the Customer mobile app and the web-based Admin panel.
1. Overview
1.1 Purpose
This document defines the product requirements for Yatra Setu, a mobile-first travel booking platform focused on Indian pilgrimage circuits and city travel. Customers search for a destination — a temple town, a pilgrim circuit, or a city — then either book a bus for the journey or buy a curated tour package, pay through Razorpay, PhonePe or Paytm, and receive an instant in-app booking confirmation. The platform spans a Customer mobile app and a web-based Admin panel for the super admin and operations team.
1.2 Product vision
To be the most trusted way for Indian travellers and pilgrims to plan and book a journey — combining reliable bus inventory, hand-picked pilgrimage and city packages, transparent pricing, and instant digital tickets, all backed by an operations console that gives the business full control of catalogue, bookings, payments and refunds.
1.3 Scope
In scope: OTP onboarding; destination discovery and search; bus search, seat selection and boarding points; curated pilgrimage and city packages with day-wise itineraries; traveller details; payments via Razorpay, PhonePe, Paytm, UPI and cards; instant confirmation and e-tickets/vouchers; trips with upcoming and past bookings, cancellation and refunds; and the Admin panel (dashboard, bookings, package and route catalogue, payments, users, coupons, content and reports).
Out of scope (v1): flights and trains, hotels-only booking, international destinations, and a separate operator/agent self-service portal (operators are onboarded by Admin in v1).
2. Personas
Five primary actors interact with the platform.
| Persona | Description | Primary goals |
|---|---|---|
| Traveller / Pilgrim | Individual booking a journey for self or family. | Find the right trip fast, fair price, safe travel, instant ticket. |
| Group organizer | Books for a family or a group of pilgrims. | Multiple travellers, group seats, one payment, shared tickets. |
| Operations / Ops | Manages bookings, refunds and day-to-day issues. | Resolve bookings quickly, manage cancellations and payouts. |
| Catalogue manager | Curates packages, routes and content. | Publish packages, manage bus inventory, run offers. |
| Super Admin | Business operator running the platform. | Control pricing, monitor revenue, manage users & settings. |
3. Discovery & Search
3.1 Search & destinations
The home screen leads with search: a traveller enters a destination (e.g. Tirupati, Shirdi, Varanasi, Vaishno Devi) or a from–to route and a date. Results combine bus options and packages for that destination. Curated pilgrimage circuits (Char Dham, Jyotirlinga, Shakti Peeth) and popular cities are surfaced as featured collections with imagery.
3.2 Filters & categories
Results can be filtered by date, journey type (bus / package), price band, duration, departure city, and amenities. Quick categories — Buses, Packages, Pilgrimage, Hill stations — let users browse without typing. A destination detail page describes the place, shows the best bus fares and available packages, and offers two clear actions: Book a bus or Book a package. See search → booking → payment live in the demo →
4. Bus Booking
4.1 Search results & selection
For a chosen route and date, the app lists available buses with operator, bus type (Seater / Sleeper / AC / Non-AC), departure and arrival time, duration, rating, fare and seats available. Selecting a bus opens an interactive seat map showing available, booked and selected seats, with gender-aware seat rules where required.
4.2 Boarding points & fare
The traveller picks boarding and dropping points, reviews the fare (base + taxes + convenience fee), and proceeds to traveller details. Seats are held with a short lock during checkout so two users cannot book the same seat; the lock releases automatically if payment is not completed in time.
5. Package Booking
Curated pilgrimage and city packages carry a hero image, a day-wise itinerary, inclusions and exclusions (travel, stay, darshan/sightseeing, meals), duration, departure dates and a per-person price. The traveller selects a departure date and number of travellers, reviews the breakdown, and continues to traveller details. Packages can be marked as fixed-departure (set dates) or on-request, and support add-ons (extra night, guide, meals) configured from Admin.
6. Payments & Confirmation
Checkout collects the lead passenger and co-travellers, then payment. Yatra Setu integrates Razorpay, PhonePe and Paytm alongside UPI and cards; the gateway is selected at checkout and configurable from Admin. The fare breakup (base, taxes, convenience fee, discount) is shown before payment. On success the app shows an instant confirmation with a booking ID and a digital e-ticket / voucher (with QR) stored in the app; on failure the seat lock releases and the user can retry. Cancellations follow a configurable policy with automated refunds back to the source.
| Step | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Fare breakup | Base fare, taxes, convenience fee and any coupon discount shown before payment. |
| Gateway | Razorpay / PhonePe / Paytm / UPI / cards; gateways toggled from Admin. |
| Confirmation | Instant in-app confirmation + e-ticket / voucher with QR and booking ID. |
| Refunds | Policy-driven, automated to source; tracked in Admin → Payments. |
7. Trips & History
The Trips tab separates Upcoming and Past bookings. Each booking opens to a full ticket: journey details, travellers, boarding point, fare paid, status, and actions to download or share the ticket, get directions to the boarding point, cancel (per policy), or re-book. Past trips support quick re-booking and rating. A complete booking history is always available offline within the app.
8. Admin Panel
The Admin panel is the web-based operations and configuration hub for the super admin and ops team, organized as a grouped left-sidebar navigation.
| Category | Items |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | KPIs: bookings, revenue/GMV, today's trips, conversion. |
| Bookings | All bus & package bookings, status, traveller details, actions. |
| Packages | Create & manage packages, itineraries, departure dates, pricing. |
| Routes & Buses | Operators, routes, bus types, seat layouts, fares, inventory. |
| Payments | Transactions, gateways, refunds, settlements, reconciliation. |
| Users | Customers, profiles, booking history, access. |
| Coupons | Discount campaigns and promotional offers. |
| Content | Banners, featured collections, destination pages, CMS. |
| Reports | Sales, route & package performance, refunds, gateway split. |
| Settings | Gateways, taxes & fees, cancellation policy, roles & access. |
9. Notifications & Support
Notifications
Push, SMS and WhatsApp for booking confirmation, departure reminders, gate/boarding updates and refund status.
Support
In-app help & tickets, call/WhatsApp support, and a cancellation/refund self-service flow.
Safety
Verified operators, masked calling to drivers/operators, and emergency contact during the journey.
Localization
English + Hindi (and regional languages roadmap) with rupee pricing and Indian date formats.
10. Non-Functional Requirements
Performance
Search results under 2 seconds; seat map and checkout interactive under 1.5 seconds.
Scalability
Handle pilgrim-season peaks (Kumbh, Char Dham, festivals) with horizontal scaling and Redis seat-locking.
Security & payments
PCI-DSS-aligned payment handling via gateways (no raw card storage), encrypted PII, OTP auth, RBAC for admin.
Reliability
99.9% uptime; idempotent payments & webhooks; graceful seat-lock release on failure.
Compliance
GST-compliant invoicing, RBI payment-aggregator norms, and data handling per Indian regulation.
Observability
Audit logs for bookings, payments and refunds; reconciliation reports; alerting on failed webhooks.
11. Booking Status Model
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Seats/package selected; traveller filling details. |
| Payment pending | Seat lock held; awaiting gateway payment. |
| Confirmed | Payment successful; e-ticket / voucher issued. |
| Upcoming | Confirmed booking with a future departure date. |
| Completed | Journey date passed; eligible for rating & re-book. |
| Cancelled | Cancelled by customer or ops per policy. |
| Refunded | Refund processed to source after cancellation. |
12. Open Questions
- Which bus inventory source — direct operator tie-ups, an aggregator API, or both — for launch?
- Default cancellation & refund slabs (time-before-departure tiers) and who bears the gateway fee?
- Convenience-fee model: flat, percentage, or absorbed into fare?
- Which gateway is primary vs fallback (Razorpay / PhonePe / Paytm), and routing logic?
- Which pilgrimage circuits and cities launch in v1 versus later phases?