I’ve travelled in a few State Transport (ST) buses throughout India. I’ve found a trend that most of you may agree:
ST buses in southern states are much more people friendly and the staff is not as rowdy as the staff in ST buses of northern states. Especially, UP, Rajasthan etc is horrible.
In a survey 3-4 years back, I read that AP was the No.1 and MSRTC (Maharashtra Road Transport Corporation) was No. 2 in all state transports.
The services are acceptably punctual, staff is a little more cordial than what you would expect from government employees. Buses are packed at times, but people are treated as humans and not as animals. School children and ladies are taken care of. Staff will tell ladies that "we wont drop you at this lonely spot in the nigh". You can get down at a bust stand which will have a lot a people and travel home in the morning. Every village in Maharashtra (rather 95-98%) have an ST service on which the rural folk can depend.
The staff does not ogle at women, do not try to touch them or take advantage of the crowds.
The buses are fairly regular. They have a straight funda. All long distance routes will have newer buses. All khatara/old buses in urban areas.
This saves long distance passengers from a lot of trouble caused due to failures.
Routes like Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai - Ahmednagar, Mumbai-Satara, Pune-Baramati, Nagpur-Wardha, Pune-Kolhapur, Mumbai-Ratnagiri, Mumbai-Nasik, Kolhapur-Panaji etc are very well managed.
Yeah, we may find some exceptions w.r.t all points mentioned above, but my observations are based on a lot of experiences.