Transport in India

India has one of the largest, but not the densest motorway and rail networks in the world. Despite constant adjustments, the transport system is often completely overloaded. The reasons for this lie in the population growth, the traffic planning and urban design are not grown, as well as in the high number of commuters. Furthermore, there is a strong freight transport by land, sea and in the air.

India is not only the largest country in South Asia, but also the strongest economy of this large region and thus has a high proportion of the goods as well as on cross-border traffic. It borders eight countries, six of them on land, each of which economic relations are maintained. India has great demand in the further development of transport infrastructure, also in view of the enormous economic development potential.

  • 3.1 International Air Transport
  • 3.2 Domestic air traffic
  • 4.1 Maritime
  • 4.2 Inland Waterways

Road

The Indian road network has a length of 3.3 million kilometers, of which only about half is paved. The traffic is composed mainly of mopeds, cars, auto-rickshaws, buses and bicycles. In some metropolitan areas freight transports are possible only on foot due to the tightness. Only in Kolkata ( Calcutta) rickshaws are still pulled by people. The city of Delhi has 1749 km roads per 100 km ², and thus has the densest road network in the country.

Smaller items are very common in rural areas, partly with the help of farm animals transported by carts. There is officially left traffic for vehicles. In large cities, road traffic is congested during the day, chaotic and mostly of long traffic jams - in - even in the pedestrian traffic. The frequent gridlock is detrimental to the economic power, since the transport of goods, the demand transport services can not provide. The six-lane Mumbai- Pune Expressway highway is a special road - this toll has to be paid and the holding prohibition is enforced by high police presence.

Traffic rules

There is officially left traffic for road vehicles. Traffic rules otherwise there is only theoretical. In practice, basically the heavier vehicle has the right of way - so trucks can be of motorcycles in the oncoming traffic does not prevent you from overtaking. Headlight flasher means " Out of the way, I do not stop. " is, for example, used for two-way traffic at bottlenecks.

Buses

City buses are very common, especially in urban centers and are usually operated by public companies. There is also also - as in many Asian countries common - a regular transport service for intercity mating. In highway driving, there are both offers of private sellers who are mostly traveling by air-conditioned buses overnight, which will be marketed as a luxury such as the company Neeta.

However, there is usually much denser and much more frequently in state 's network of bus routes, bus stations, the most central (engl bus stand or bus station ) in various cities in half or quarter hour ( or as needed much more common ) to each other. Information about these buses ( prices, timetables ) is obtained as a tourist usually only the driver personally, because tourist information and travel agents expect for a "rich" tourists these simple non-conditioned buses do not come into question.

Highways

The 71,000 km of national highways are mostly two lanes ( one lane in each direction), a smaller proportion of these are structurally separated. The State Highways of the states are partially only one lane and have a route network of 130,000 kilometers.

The largest long-distance transport project of India is the Golden Quadrilateral ( 5846 km ), whose construction costs are estimated at 12.317 billion U.S. dollars. A four-to six-lane road ( Express Highway) is trapezoidal the major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai together. The project should be completed in September 2007, but was not completed in November 2007, only the route Mumbai- Delhi (NH -8) with 1,419 kilometers is complete. The road is the first part of the National Highways Development Project ( NHDP ), which was adopted in 1998. The project has the further expansion of the road network to the destination.

The Grand Trunk Road, the course comes in part from the 4th century BC, is a 2500 km long highway that connects India with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Rail transport

Rail transport was introduced by the British Crown in 1853, has built up in the period following a rail network between major metropolitan areas. In addition, many other regions are well connected to the rail network. Today, the railway is the fourth largest in the Welt.Jährlich be 5 billion passengers and over 350 million tons of goods on the Indian railways settled.

The railway network is 63,940 kilometers, the largest in the world under a single management. 2003/ 04 556 million tons of goods were transported, including four-fifths of bulk commodities such as coal, ore, grain, mineral, cement, iron and steel and fertilizer. The Indian State Railways ( Indian Railways ) is divided into 16 regional companies and employs 1.6 million people more employees than any other state-owned enterprises in the country. All superlatives can obscure the sometimes desolate state of the rail network but barely.

The main problems are the uneven and large mesh opening up of the country, mostly outdated technology, the four different gauges ( broad gauge, meter gauge, two narrow gauges ) and the low level of electrification. Only about a quarter of the length of the route (as of 2003/ 04) is electrified. India's rail network is so true, just behind China 's second longest, but by no means densest Asia. On a global scale, India's railway network is in fifth place. The state focusses mainly on the electrification and the expansion of double track main lines, the conversion of meter gauge lines into broad gauge and modernization of technical equipment. Indeed, the extension of the railroad to keep up with the increasing demands of population and industrial growth hardly step, which contributes to the rapid development of road transport.

In tourist Museum routes are still partially steam locomotives in operation. This narrow gauge railways are registered by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, see mountain railways in India.

Long-distance traffic

The state railway founded in 1951, Indian Railways, which was formed of 42 railway companies, has a monopoly on nationwide long-distance transport by rail. Many of the railway facilities (especially railway stations ) and vehicles from the 19th or 20th century are still used today.

Transport

In rural areas there are no trains that could be compared with German regional trains. However, runs on each route at least once a day for longdistance train that stops at all stations.

Some Indian cities have a route network that is similar to the S-Bahn in Germany. These tracks are operated by the Indian State Railways Indian Railways. The track width and voltage in the catenary are identical with those of the long-distance transport, so that the same tracks can be cycled. In some cases (especially in the inner cities ) suburban trains have further additional pairs of tracks. These trains in the city centers to the beat of a few minutes. Here do not occur on the side lines to the suburbs outside even rarer, but timetable gaps of more than 2 hours. In English, these systems are generally referred to as the Mass Rapid Transit system or Suburban Railway, in the Indian vernacular most simply as Local Trains.

Especially at peak times during the rush hour trains can be very crowded. But even outside of peak times when there are free seats, some passengers are when driving in the open doors or even sitting on the roof to take advantage of the refreshing wind. The doors can be closed by hand. During the trip, the doors are usually left open. Closed they are really only in heavy rain.

With S-Bahn commuter trains comparable exists in:

  • Mumbai Suburban Railway
  • Kolkata Kolkata Suburban Railway

Metros

There are three metro systems in India:

  • Kolkata in 1984, the first subway: Metro Kolkata, today two lines, 23 stops, 25 kilometers of track
  • Delhi has since 2002 on the Delhi Metro. She has seven lines, 138 stops and a distance of 154 kilometers. The trails are sometimes as underground in tunnels and partially on stilts as high rail.
  • Bangalore has since 2011, the Bangalore Metro or Namma Metro. Medium term, two lines are planned with 40 breakpoints and 42 kilometers of track.

In planning or construction are metro systems in the following cities:

  • Mumbai - Mumbai Metro
  • Ahmedabad Ahmedabad Metro
  • Chennai - Chennai Metro
  • Jaipur - Jaipur Metro

Trams

Trams, there are today only in Kolkata ( 68 kilometers route network ). Formerly there were trams in Mumbai, Kanpur, Nasik and Chennai.

Elevated trains

An alternative to the current forms of transport public transport is the elevated train. Therefore, in November 2003, the construction of a 1.6 -kilometer test track in Margao (Goa) Skybus Metro was started, where the technology is developed further. Elevated railways are to possibly come in metropolitan areas for use where other roads can not be built due to the dense development.

Traffic

Overall, there are eleven international and 98 national airports and 334 takeoff and landing places for aircraft in civil aviation. Basically, the terminal for domestic flights and international flights are separated and housed in different buildings, some of which eg Mumbai can be far apart. For all the Indian air terminal buildings receive only passengers access that can show at the airport armed guard at the entrance a booking confirmation on paper and passport (!) - In the case of non- Indian passengers. The congestion, small size and poor accessibility of airports pose a great difficulty dar. To be able to handle as many flights there are no bans on night flights. Most intercontinental flights arrive and start in the middle of the night. In most airports ( including Mumbai and Kolkata ) only one runway may be used at the same time - in many cities are therefore airport expansion or new build planned or already underway.

Earlier, two state-owned airlines Air India dominated in international flights and Indian Airlines within the country air traffic. There are now a number of private airlines that have already captured a market share of 40 percent in India.

See also List of airports in India

International Air Transport

The main international airports are located in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Kochi. The airport New Delhi and Mumbai airport together provide half of civilian air traffic in South Asia. In international air transport, both among themselves highly competitive state-owned enterprises get more and more competition from European and Asian companies.

Domestic air traffic

The flights between the major cities of India are served several times a day. On the route Mumbai- Kolkata, there are currently (August 2011), for example, 17 direct flights daily. Especially for connection to remote regions such as the states of the Northeast, which can be reached only very poorly on the land, they are of enormous importance, although only a wealthy minority can muster the financial resources as means of transport to use the aircraft. The price for a one way ticket from Mumbai to Kolkata is currently around 4500 rupees (70 € ). Indian low-cost airlines like Go Air, IndiGo, Jet Lite, Kingfisher Red and SpiceJet have gained in importance and fly to the part also to neighboring countries.

Shipping

Maritime

The fleet of the Indian merchant navy comprised 2004 321 ships with a capacity of around 11 million dwt The two largest Indian shipyards in Kochi and Visakhapatnam are state-owned. Moreover, there exists a large number of smaller private and public shipyards.

There are twelve major ports and about 180 medium and small ports for freight. Major international ports are Kolkata (West Bengal ), Haldia (West Bengal ), Paradip ( Orissa ), Visakhapatnam ( Andhra Pradesh ), Ennur (Tamil Nadu ), Chennai (Tamil Nadu ), Thoothukudi (Tamil Nadu ), Kochi ( Kerala ), Mangalore ( Karnataka ), Mormugao (Goa), Jawaharlal Nehru Port (largest in India, 50 % share of the domestic Indian maritime trade ), Navi Mumbai and Kandla (Gujarat).

Inland waterways

Inland navigation is for the traffic situation in India from negligible minor importance. This is mainly geographical reasons. On one hand, the water levels of the Indian rivers are subjected due to the strong monsoon seasonal variations. During the summer monsoon, the large quantities of water increase the flow rate significantly. This leads to strong currents, sudden changes of river courses or erosion of the shore sections, what the Marine difficult or impossible in some circumstances even.

In the dry season it is in many places hindered by excessively low water level; other hand, the navigable rivers are usually off anyway important deposits of raw materials and natural resources, which are the main transport goods inland waterways. In addition, the most important seaports of India are rarely at the mouth of rivers. Only in Goa inland waterway transport plays a major role in the transport of iron ore from the inland to the coast.

In the calm waters in the Ganges Delta are ferries that connect islands widely spread in the absence of bridges. In the backwaters in Kerala also is strong boat traffic.

Of the 14,500 km of navigable waters accounts for 5200 km of rivers and 485 km on canals.

Auto rickshaw National Highway (India) Chennai Central railway station Cereal Metre gauge Mountain Railways of India Indian (airline) Kerala backwaters
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