Buses vanish, trains overflow: How public transport in India's megacities is buckling under pressure

Hindustan Times

16-06-2025

Last week, four people died and nine others were injured after falling off an overcrowded local train in Mumbai during peak office hours—once again spotlighting the growing crisis of public transport overcrowding in India's megacities.
In Mumbai, the suburban railways—often called the city's lifeline—are operating far beyond capacity. Trains designed for 2,500 passengers routinely carry more than 5,000 during rush hours. Between 2005 and 2024, an alarming 51,802 people lost their lives on these tracks—averaging seven deaths a day. 'Travelling on Mumbai locals is like gambling with your life—you're lucky if you reach your destination safely during rush hours,' says Rajesh Rane, a Mumbaikar.
Not just in Mumbai, but across cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai, commuters routinely cram into buses, often operating at almost twice their intended capacity, and jostle for space on overcrowded metro platforms. According to the OMI Foundation's Ease of Moving Index India Report 2022, 25.17% of respondents in 40 cities reported that buses were so overcrowded they could barely find space to sit or stand.
Experts blame rapid urbanisation, inadequate fleet expansion and lopsided government spending—often prioritising metro rail projects even in cities that don't need them—for the growing crisis. 'Overcrowding in public transport is a direct result of the gap between demand and supply. Despite explosive urban growth, investment in public transport, especially buses, has not kept pace,' says mobility expert Shreya Gadepalli.
The great bus shortfall
India's largest cities—Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Delhi—are witnessing a troubling decline in their public bus networks, once the backbone of urban mobility. First introduced by private operators in the 1920s, buses came under state control by the 1950s and '60s with the formation of State Transport Undertakings (STUs). For decades, these entities offered reliable and affordable service.
'But after liberalisation, buses began to lose priority,' says Gadepalli. 'Governments started focusing on metro rail projects instead. The result has been shrinking fleets, ageing vehicles, and chronic overcrowding. As reliability dropped and wait times grew, more commuters turned to private cars and two-wheelers—only to worsen congestion on roads.'
Today, underinvestment in fleet renewal and maintenance has pushed many urban bus systems to the brink. Breakdowns are common, waiting times have surged, and the limited number of buses struggles to meet soaring demand. What was once the lifeline of city transport is now a shadow of its former self.
Take Mumbai, for instance. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has witnessed a sharp decline in its owned bus fleet. Of the 2,591 buses currently in service—down from 4,200 a decade ago—only 434 (just 17%) are owned by BEST. The rest operate under wet lease agreements with private contractors, collectively ferrying 2.6 million passengers daily.
BEST officials say efforts are underway to reverse the trend. 'Recently, we've placed an order for 100 new buses, which are expected to be inducted within a month,' says a senior BEST official. The agency aims to expand the city's fleet to 3,500 buses by March 2026 and 6,000 by 2029, with the goal of lifting the current ratio of 20 buses per 100,000 residents to the global benchmark of 60. 'But delays in deliveries continue to be a big problem,' says the official.
Kolkata, once home to India's oldest tram network that in the 1970s carried over 700,000 passengers daily, has seen the system virtually dismantled over the decades. Now, the city faces a crisis with its bus network too. In the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah, an estimated 5,000 buses have been phased out over the past five years, a majority of them in 2024, with only limited replacements. A March 2025 commuter survey by the India Clean Air Network (ICAN) and Kolkata Bus-o-Pedia found that nearly one in two respondents struggled to commute due to inadequate bus services. Around 44.6% rated services as insufficient, while 25% reported waiting 30 to 60 minutes—an alarming gap between demand and supply.
'Private buses went off the roads due to a 2009 Calcutta High Court order that mandated scrapping vehicles older than 15 years,' says West Bengal transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty. 'Currently, Kolkata has around 4,500 private buses, including mini-buses, and 800 government-run buses. We are encouraging private operators to induct new vehicles, but rising fuel prices are discouraging them. We do have plans to expand the government fleet with electric and CNG buses, but at this point, I cannot give specific numbers or a timeline.'
Delhi, too, is struggling with a shrinking fleet. Many CNG buses purchased for the 2010 Commonwealth Games are being phased out, and breakdowns are common. A 2024 audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that DTC had the highest breakdown rate among India's major metros—averaging one failure every 12 days.
The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) currently operates around 6,500 buses. 'We expect to add 1,000 more by year-end, including 200 inducted recently,' says a DTC official. The government has set a target of 10,000 buses by 2026.
Back in 2018, the Delhi government told the Supreme Court that the capital required at least 11,000 buses to meet transport demands. 'Delhi had close to 10,000 buses in the late 1990s. Today, it has barely half that number,' says Gadepalli. 'Compare that to Beijing, which operates more than 28,000 buses.'
'What's needed,' Gadepalli argues, 'are more buses, better buses, and faster buses.' Dedicated bus lanes, she explains, can significantly improve speed and efficiency. 'In Bogotá, buses cover up to 280km a day, while in Indian metros, the average is just 160–170 km. This reduced coverage severely limits both frequency and capacity, leading to overcrowding.'
Even the Metro can't keep up
Even India's most advanced transit system—the Metro—is buckling under pressure. The Delhi Metro, often hailed as a model for urban mass transit in the country, now struggles with severe congestion during peak hours, particularly at high-traffic stations like Rajiv Chowk, Hauz Khas, Laxmi Nagar, and Chandni Chowk. With over 7 million passenger journeys every day, queues frequently spill onto the streets at several stations. In 2022, the Delhi high court asked DMRC to submit a detailed report on overcrowding.
'Generally, crowding occurs during peak hours, especially at interchange stations. Train schedules are carefully planned to run the maximum number of trains—every 2–3 minutes during peak time on busy lines—to increase capacity and reduce wait times,' says Anuj Dayal, principal executive director, corporate communications, DMRC.
To manage the rush, DMRC, he says, has remodelled concourse areas at high-footfall stations, including Millennium City Centre Gurugram, New Delhi, and Kashmere Gate. 'We've also added more automated fare collection (AFC) gates at busy stations to reduce queuing time, and introduced dynamic fare pricing—a 10% discount during peak and 20% during off-peak hours—to encourage commuters to shift their travel to off-peak times,' Dayal says, adding that DMRC has continuously improved service frequency to keep up with demand.
Amit Bhatt, managing director (India), International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), says Delhi needs to double its existing bus fleet and ensure better integration with the metro network to ease congestion across both systems. 'We must understand that once people shift away from public transport due to overcrowding or any other reason, it's very difficult to win them back,' he adds.
Meanwhile, cities like Bengaluru are also seeing a surge in metro ridership, often leading to overcrowded platforms and trains. Frustrated commuters increasingly take to social media to vent their grievances about packed coaches and long waits.
Can technology help?
Looking ahead, DMRC plans to integrate AI into its Phase-4 expansion. 'We aim to use advanced video analytics in CCTV systems to monitor crowding in real-time and trigger alerts for swift response,' he says.
Suresh Babu, a Mumbai-based architect and urbanist, agrees that smart technologies are essential to managing transit crowding. 'AI-powered train scheduling, real-time passenger information, and digital queuing systems can help significantly,' he says.
'Live crowd density updates empower commuters to make better travel decisions. Clear signage, designated entry and exit points, and crowd-control barriers can streamline movement. And real-time surveillance enhances safety while ensuring quicker emergency response,' adds Babu, who recently organised Urbanization: Opportunities and Challenges, a seminar in Mumbai that spotlighted transit crowding and other pressing urban issues.
An urban planning problem?
Architects and urban designers say that chronic overcrowding in public transport in Indian metros is not just a transportation issue, but a symptom of fragmented urban planning.
' When city planning fails to integrate transit-oriented development, zoning, density management, and last-mile connectivity, public transportation becomes reactive instead of proactive. In many Indian cities, population growth has far outpaced the evolution of infrastructure, and transit systems are struggling to keep up,' says Harsh Varshneya, principal architect at Sthapati Associates, a firm that has developed master plans for the redevelopment of stations at Bangalore Cantonment and Andheri in Mumbai.
'What we need is a shift towards mobility-centric urbanism, where the design of a city places seamless movement at its core, supported by mixed-use planning, pedestrian-first infrastructure, and multimodal transit systems. We must treat public transport as a social equaliser and design for dignity, accessibility, and safety, not just efficiency,' adds Varshneya.