Expressways of India


The [median strip|]expressways of India are access-controlled toll highways featuring divided carriageways, engineered to support high-speed vehicular movement and to accommodate heavy loads. They constitute the highest class of road infrastructure in the Indian road network. As of December 2024, the total length of expressways in India was, with under construction.
A central reservation or median separates the traffic moving in opposite directions on expressways. Entry and exits are permitted only through grade separated interchanges. In contrast, National highways may or may not have a median and may lack full access-control. Additionally, some highways constructed by State Governments, which may be fully or partially access-controlled, are designated or named as expressways by the respective State authorities.
Fully opened in April 2002, Mumbai–Pune Expressway was India's first six-lane, access-controlled, inter-city tolled expressway. Spanning between Mumbai and Pune, within the state of Maharashtra, it set the benchmark for future expressway development in the country. Since then, expressway construction has significantly accelerated, particularly under the Bharatmala project and other infrastructure programmes both national and regional.
As of 2024, the longest expressway in India is the partially-opened Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, spanning, which was inaugurated on 18 December 2024. The widest expressway is the Delhi–Gurgaon section of the Dwarka Expressway, featuring 16 lanes, which was also opened in 2024.

History

Pre-independence

While major roads in the Indian subcontinent existed as early as 29th Century BCE in the Indus Valley, the long Grand Trunk Road built by the Mauryans during 4th century BCE and later maintained by others, is one of the earliest examples of highest class road infrastructure in India. In 1934, Indian Roads Congress was formed to overlook development and research of roads in India and envisioned to achieve a road density of 16 km per 100 km2 of land pre-independence. It was not until in 1995 when National Highways Authority of India was established as an autonomous body to develop, maintain and manage India's road network through National Highways. NHAI would later build and operate various expressways in the country.

Early expressways

In 1990, Government of Maharashtra appointed RITES to conduct a feasibility study for toll-based expressway between Mumbai and Pune, marking it as the first such initiative to construct an expressway in India. Four years later, RITES submitted its report and the project was estimated to cost. In March 1997, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation undertook the construction of the expressway on a Build–operate–transfer model that allowed the state government to collect tolls for 30 years. At the end of the same year, after all environmental and forest clearances, the construction on the corridor commenced with first sections opening in 2000. In April 2002, India's first expressway was flagged to be fully operational, with an estimated construction cost of, which paved the way for more such expressways across the country.
On 24 January 2001, the eight-lane long DND Flyway between Delhi and Noida was operationalised, becoming the first urban expressway in India. Following Mumbai-Pune, Ahmedabad–Vadodara Expressway was then opened between the cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara in Gujarat on 16 August 2004. While this expressway was operationalised two years later, it was designated as National Expressway 1 back in 1986 by the Government of India.
In 2009, with the advent of new expressway infrastructures coming up across India, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was preparing to set-up National Expressways Authority of India to be in-charge of the construction and maintenance of expressways, however, the Ministry did not proceed with the creation of NEAI for unspecified reasons and NHAI continued to remain in-charge.

Bharatmala pariyojana

Prior to being subsumed under Bharatmala Pariyojana, the government of India had launched National Highways Development Project in 1998 as a seven-step flagship project to construct highest class roads in India and to upgrade the existing ones. The phase-4 of which included the development of of expressways at an indicative cost of. In 2017, under Bharatmala about km of corridors had been identified for development of new expressways, of which were taken up under phase-1 of the project.
In the 2010s, the states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh took keen interest in investing in expressways through dedicated expressway corporations of MSRDC and UPEIDA respectively. While Maharashtra led by MSRDC completed its second expressway with long Mumbai–Nagpur Expressway in June 2025, Uttar Pradesh had built four new expressways namely; Bundelkhand, Purvanchal, Agra–Lucknow and Yamuna expressways by the turn of early 2020s. On 21 May 2015, in a first for military aviation and expressway infrastructure in India, the Indian Air Force's Dassault Mirage 2000 successfully landed on the Yamuna Expressway near Mathura in a mock-drill to evaluate the utility of using highways and expressways for emergency landings by military aircraft.
In 2024, the government of India presented an ambitious 'Vision 2047' plan envisioning the construction of up to of access-controlled highways and expressways, with Indians gaining access to the expressways at a distance of from any point in the country. The ministry of road transport and highways had also been finalising new guidelines to improve and standardise infrastructure along the already-developed highways with wayside amenities. Satellite-based tolling was also proposed to be started on 10-15 stretches in the same year.

Timeline

Designation

Expressway categories

Expressways in India are designated into three main categories:
  • National Expressways : Managed by NHAI under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, these are the medium to long-distance expressways which connect the major cities of India. Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, designated as National Expressway-4 is one such example of a National Expressway.
  • Economic Corridors : Also managed by NHAI under MoRTH, these expressways are being built across various Industrial corridors of India. Amritsar–Jamnagar Expressway, designated as Economic Corridor-3 is an example of Industrial expressway.
  • State Expressways : These are the regional expressways undertaken by respective state governments to connect the cities within a state. Mumbai–Nagpur Expressway undertaken by Maharashtra state-government's MSRDC is an example for regional expressway undertaken by the Maharashtra state government.
  • Urban expressways: Additionally some urban governments and municipalities have also constructed expressways within or near urban areas to facilitate decongestion and faster movement within cities. DND Flyway between Delhi and Noida is an example for toll-free urban expressway.
  • Bypass expressways: Bypass expressways are constructed to divert the through-traffic, away from urban areas and city centres. They reduce urban pollution and improve travel speed. Chennai Bypass Road is an example that is built to bypass Chennai.
  • Spur expressways: Spur expressways in India are short corridors that branch off from a main expressway to connect important cities, towns, industrial zones or border areas, thus enhancing the regional connectivity. The long Nakodar–Amritsar spur section which branches off from the Delhi–Katra Expressway is an example.

    Greenfield and Brownfield expressways

Greenfield Expressways in India are new expressways that are built on new alignments to facilitate economy of the areas they pass through. These newly built expressways allow for speeds up to and typically have space reserved between the carriages to allow for a future expansion. Delhi–Mumbai Expressway is an example which is being built with eight-lanes and a reserved space in the median to allow for future expansion of up to twelve lanes. While Brownfield Expressways in India backed by 'Brownfield National Highway Project' are a series of projects undertaken to widen/re-develop existing national highways that have high traffic demand. The upgradation usually involves expansion of lanes from four to six, such as NH-709A.

Design standards

Access

on Indian expressways offers uninterrupted high-speed travel and safety. It is mainly achieved through fencing, Grade separation with over-passes and under-passes, barriers or medians and with additional dedicated service roads for local traffic. Fully access-controlled expressways do not allow access from side roads, villages or properties but only via inter-changes. Partially access-controlled expressways allow access at some at-grade junctions and minor road crossings may exist. Non access-controlled roads are conventional highways that have a mix of local and through traffic without any entry restrictions.

Carriageways

All Indian expressways have dual carriageways, one for each direction, separated by a
median. Each carriageway typically has at least two lanes, with three to four lanes also being common. Most Greenfield expressways have a reserved space between the carriages for future expansion in number of lanes. Some expressways utilise concrete or metal beam crash barriers for safety. Paved shoulders or emergency lanes also exist beside each carriageway to support during the event of accident. Service lanes on each direction are often provided outside the fenced area for local traffic.
The Indian Roads Congress has specified guidelines for designing access-controlled highways with its IRC:SP:99-2013 standard. It specifies a standard lane width of with paved shoulders having a width of and unpaved shoulders having width.