Transport in Mumbai


Transport in Mumbai is achieved by both public and private transport. As of 2016, 52% of commuters use public transport. Mumbai has the largest organized bus transport network among major Indian cities.
Mumbai's public transport consists primarily of rapid transit on exclusive suburban railway lines augmented by commuter rail on main lines serving outlying suburbs, the bus services of the three municipalities making up the metropolitan area, public taxis and auto rickshaws, as well as ferry services. A metro and a monorail system were inaugurated in 2014. A commercial seaplane service was also introduced in 2014.

Road

Sea-links

As of 2024, Mumbai currently has 3 major operational or under-construction sea-links:
The Bandra–Worli Sea Link bridge is one of the longest bridges in the country, opened in 2009. It connects the suburbs of Bandra and Worli, and carries around 32,000 vehicles daily as of 2018.
The Harbour Link is the longest bridge in India. It was opened on 12 January 2024, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the bridge. It connects Mumbai with Navi Mumbai and is 21.8 kilometers in length. The bridge runs between the localities of Sewri in South Mumbai to Ulwe of Navi Mumbai.
The Coastal Road is an under-construction, 8-lane, 29.2 km long expressway that will run along Mumbai's western coastline. It will connect the locality of Marine Lines in the south to Mumbai and Kandivali in the North. It is projected to be used by 130,000 vehicles daily and to reduce travel time between South Mumbai and the Western Suburbs from 2 hours to 40 minutes. Its first phase was inaugurated on 11 March 2024.

Buses

Taxis

Taxis arrived in 1911 to complement horse cars. Black and yellow Fiat taxis are an integral part of the city's heritage and have been depicted in numerous Bollywood movies. Metered taxis ply throughout Mumbai and have a monopoly from Bandra to Churchgate on the Western line, and from Sion to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus on the Central line. Beyond Sion and Bandra, auto rickshaws are not allowed, and one has to hire a taxi. However, between Sion to Thane and Bandra to Bhayandar, both taxis and autorickshaws are available to transport passengers.
Mumbai is served by two intra-city highways: Old Mumbai-Pune Highway and Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway.

Number of taxis

There are around 58,000 taxis in Greater Mumbai and 98,566 in Mumbai MMR as of 2010.
There are 18,000 black and yellow taxis on Mumbai roads as of 2024, consisting of cars like the Maruti Alto, Ritz, Wagon R, and Omni, Tata Indica and Hyundai Santro.

Taxi Regulations

Law requires the driver of an unengaged taxi to take a passenger wherever they want to go, regardless of distance or time, if the fare meter of the unengaged rickshaw/taxi is in a 'For Hire' mode. The modes were denoted by older mechanical meters in this manner: a) upright – for hire b) half mast – not doing business c), facing down-currently hired.
Authorities encourage passengers to make complaints, for refusal to convey, excess fare, tampered meters, fake tariff cards, or misconduct by drivers, by direct email as well as by a website.

Rickshaws

Auto rickshaws play an important role in public transport in Mumbai. There are 246,458 black-and-yellow metered auto rickshaws, often simply called autos, in the Mumbai MMR as of 2008. Since 2002, all auto rickshaws have been required to use CNG as fuel. However, not all rickshaws comply. In some areas, if a CNG filling facility is not available, the fuel is either petrol or LPG.
Auto rickshaws are not permitted to enter Old Bombay . The southernmost points accessible to them are Bandra Fire Station in Western Mumbai and Sion Bus Depot in Central Mumbai. Auto rickshaws registered in Mumbai are not allowed travel beyond the municipal limits. They have been allowed to travel between Sion to Mulund in the Central Suburbs and up to Mankhurd on the Harbour line. People who wish to travel beyond Mumbai to suburbs like Vashi,and Airoli have to catch a suburban rickshaw. In the western suburbs, they are allowed to travel between Bandra and Bhayandar only.
A mechanical meter decides the fare, which is proportional to distance traveled. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Transport Authority updated the auto-rickshaw fares and declared a hike recently, which is applied from 1 March 2021. The regulation for auto rickshaws is similar to taxis, and methods of complaining against the auto rickshaws and taxis are available on the Mumbai RTO website.

Survey

In 2021, UK-based car-sharing company Hiyacar announced in a survey that Mumbai is the most stressful city in the world for driving. Public transportation options are one of the main factors that were observed for the survey.

National Highways

The city of Mumbai, the financial capital of India and the capital of Maharashtra state, is a critical node in the country's national highway network. These highways facilitate inter-state connectivity and link the Mumbai Metropolitan Region with many cities in india like Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi. National Highway 48 Starts from the Western Express Highway at Mira Road, and after the Teen Hath Naka Junction at Thane, it continues from the Eastern Express Highway to Pune, and from which it reaches Chennai. It connects Mumbai to Bengaluru. National Highway 160 connects Thane, near Mumbai to Sankeshwar, in Karnataka. National Highway 66 connects Panvel, near Mumbai, to Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu. It starts at Kalamboli circle from which NH 48 and Mumbai Pune Expressway continue and NH 66 starts from here. Here is where the Sion-Panvel highway ends. Old National Highway 6 connected Mumbai to Kolkata, until it was removed after a massive renumbering in 2010. Mumbai-Agra Highway connected Mumbai and Agra from Thane.

Rail

Mumbai Suburban Railway

The Mumbai Suburban Railway is the oldest commuter rail in Asia, founded in 1853. It is owned by Indian Railways and operated by its Western Railways and Central Railways divisions. Most economical transport subsidized by the government of India via Railway ministry. With a length of 430 km, it has highest passenger density in the world, 7.5 million people daily, more than half of daily capacity of Indian Railways. It has four radial lines:
Mumbai railways offer first class commuter transport. First class fares are approximately 10 times the second class fare and tend to be less crowded in the non-rush hour period. First class compartments also have slightly better seats than second class. While less crowded during non-peak hours, the first class compartments are rather more crowded during the peak hour time, as there is a large supply and demand gap. It is notoriously hard to get into the first class compartment as the coach is overcrowded with people hanging out of the doors.
Since 2017, Mumbai Suburban Rail became the first in India to operate Air-Conditioned rakes in its Western and Central line. These rakes are equipped with automatic doors and are vestibuled in a 12-coach configuration with coaches 1 to 6 vestibuled, motor connection between coaches 6 and 7 and coaches 7 to 12 again vestibuled. There are also women-only cars, and since 1992, 'Ladies Special' trains with all coaches reserved for women passengers.

Metro

In January 2004, a master transit plan was unveiled by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. The plan integrated a 146 kilometer-long metro system, of which 32 km would be underground.
In June 2004, government approval was given for a 12-station elevated line between Ghatkopar and Versova. In June 2006, the first phase of the Mumbai Metro project was inaugurated. Construction work began in February 2008. A successful trial run was conducted in May 2013, and the system's first line entered operation in June 2014, although some aspects of the project were afflicted by delays and cost issues. The Mumbai Metro opened on 8 June 2014. On 2 April 2022, Metro line 2A and 7 were inaugurated, these two lines have a combined length of 19,25 km and will reduce the traffic congestion in North Mumbai. The first line of the Navi Mumbai Metro was inaugurated on 17 November 2023.
Many more lines are under-construction or planned having a total length of 345 km, which includes new lines in the Navi Mumbai Metro and the Thane Metro, which is to be developed independently of the rest of the Mumbai Metro system.

Monorail

The Mumbai Monorail is a monorail system for the city of Mumbai. Construction began in January 2009 and the first operational line was inaugurated on 1 February 2014. It is being contracted by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and is the first monorail in India.
Four lines were proposed. The first two are long. Out of the two, Line 1 was opened to the public in 2014.
Two lines long were to be constructed after the first two have opened.
Additionally, previously planned Mumbai Metro corridors are also being examined to be made as monorail corridors instead of the metro by MMRDA due to the dense and congested areas these corridors pass through. The corridors are:

Bullet Train

The 650 km Mumbai-Ahemdabad Bullet train project is another major high-speed rail project that is supposed to run between Mumbai and Ahemdabad is poised to revolutionize travel time between these two major cities which usually would take about 7 to 8 hours to a meager 2hrs 57mins.This would create demand for real estate in key areas such as Thane, Dombivali and Kalyan.

International connections

There are plans to build an underwater rail tunnel linking Dubai with Mumbai.

Trams

Trams were an important form of transport until the mid-1960s. They were introduced in the late 19th century and in their heyday, covered many areas of the city. At their peak, route length grew to more than 47 kilometers. The system closed down in 1964.

Ferry

Many ferries operate from Mumbai at designated ferry terminals like Madh Island, Elephanta, Manori, Versova, Belapur, Alibaug, Mandwa, Rewas, the Gateway of India and the Ferry Wharf.
  • from Vashi to the Gateway of India
  • to Elephanta Caves and to nearby places such as Alibaug, Rewas, and Mandwa
  • in northern Mumbai across the Manori Creek. The barges operate at regular intervals across the shallow creek linking Manori to Malad
  • from Versova to Madh Island

Flights

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is the main aviation hub in the city and the second busiest airport in India in terms of passenger traffic. It handled 54.8 million passengers in 2024.
The new integrated terminal T2 was inaugurated on 10 January 2014 and opened for international operations on 12 February 2014, increasing the capacity of the airport to 40 million passengers annually. A dedicated six lane, elevated road connecting the new terminal with the main arterial Western Express Highway was also opened to the public the same day.
The Navi Mumbai International Airport is being constructed in the Kopra-Panvel area and will help relieve the increasing traffic burden on the existing airport. It is also planning to build a dedicated VVIP terminal for film actors, top politicians, high-ranking government officials, millionares and billionares
The Juhu Aerodrome was India's first airport, and now hosts a flying club and a heliport.

Intercity

There are many ways of intercity travelling from Mumbai, some the most famous ways are:

Bus

Mumbai has intercity bus connections with MSRTC. MSRTC runs intercity busses from the city to various parts of Maharashtra. It operates ordinary seater bus services, semi-luxury sleeper busses, and luxury air conditioned sleeper busses under the brand names '"Shivneri", "Shivshahi", and "Ashwamedh". Apart from MSRTC, KSRTC operates from Mumbai to Bengaluru. There also many private bus operators with AC and Non-AC intercity busses from Mumbai to various cities in India.

Bus stations

  • Kurla MSRTC
  • Panvel bus depot
  • Parel MSRTC depot
  • Dadar bus stop
  • Borivali Western Express Highway
  • Borivali Nancy Colony
  • Turbhe
  • Thane
  • Kalamboli
  • Teen Hath Naka, Thane