In a country where nearly 90 percent of the population earns less than 25,000 a month, 12-15% of the salary is just lost in the daily commute. For a family already counting every rupee, it is almost unimaginable: how do they manage rent, groceries, or even put something aside for their children?
Every morning, Indian cities rehearse a familiar performance. A 30-minute drive stretches into an hour. A bus, promised on schedule, either doesn’t arrive or crawls through the same gridlock as private cars. A metro ride, once seen as the answer to urban chaos, ends with a long and weary walk because the last mile still hasn’t been thought through. For millions of people, the commute is no longer measured in minutes saved, but in delays endured.
India’s congestion crisis isn’t a technology problem; it’s a policy, governance, and incentive failure. While billions are poured into metro projects and expressways, urban commuters still find themselves stuck in traffic, grappling with poor last-mile connectivity and unreliable mass transport. To capture how this shift is unfolding, TheRise conducted a brief survey on India’s urban mobility transitions to understand how the country commutes.
Considering the case of urban bus services, while cities continue to add new vehicles to the fleet, the bus ridership has steadily declined, as per the survey. The reasons are simple- buses are unreliable, overcrowded, and rarely given priority lanes. Schedules are inconsistent, last-mile access remains poor, and route planning is misaligned with demand. In many high-traffic corridors, buses are too few and jam-packed, while other routes remain underserved.
Faced with such inefficiency, commuters naturally turn to other options. More than 20 percent of respondents in the survey reported relying on multiple modes of transport daily to complete a single trip of their journey — a clear signal that the system forces them to patch together their own solutions. Shared autos and e-rickshaws, far from being a nuisance, are rather a necessity that exists precisely because buses and other mass transit systems fail to deliver reliable last-mile connectivity.
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This gap is driving people towards private vehicles. Over 42% of respondents said they now rely on a bike, scooter, or car as their primary mode of commute. But this shift comes at a steep cost. Basic monthly expenses are climbing beyond affordability for nearly half of the population.
The survey found that 41.7 percent of the respondents spend more than ₹3,000 a month on commuting. In a country where nearly 90 percent of the population earns less than 25,000 a month, 12-15% of the salary is lost in the daily commute. For a family already counting every rupee, it is almost unimaginable: how do they manage rent, groceries, or even put something aside for their children?
Further, commuters’ choices reveal an equally striking story. When asked what mattered most, 79 percent of respondents said they prioritized speed over both cost and safety. This willingness to trade risk for minutes is reflected in national data, too. Over-speeding alone accounted for nearly 68 percent of road accidents and fatalities in 2023, contributing to over 1,72,890 deaths across India. Commuters are not ignorant of the risks; they are simply making a rational calculation in a system that leaves them no better option.
Unreliability makes matters worse. Respondents rated public transport services a meagre 2.6 out of 5, with 40 percent saying they often wait at least 20 minutes for a service to arrive. Delays are caused by insufficient infrastructure, poorly planned routes of the urban mass rapid transport system, or traffic congestion. This unpredictability erodes morale, with some commuters even admitting that they daydream daily about quitting their jobs just to escape the commute
For women, this challenge is layered with fear. 64% of women listed personal security as a top priority. These women respondents mentioned fear about crowded trains or dimly lit stations – one even mentioned the dreaded “metro crowd” during rush hour. Such fears are steering women toward other modes or even shorter trips.
Many respondents, especially in tier-2 cities, described metro projects as ‘supply-led prestige investments’ with thin networks and weak last-mile links that leave them underused and expensive to run.
When asked what would actually make commuting better, respondents didn’t ask for grand promises. Instead, they pointed to practical fixes: smoother traffic flow through smarter signals and better traffic rules enforcement, pothole-free roads, safe sidewalks, and clean stations. Many called for formalizing last-mile options like autos and e-rickshaws with fixed fares and pickup points. Women, in particular, repeatedly stressed the need for brighter lighting, visible security, and safer modes of travel.
Cities now tout the slogan “move people, not cars.” But rhetoric without these fundamentals is just noise. Until cities put people at the heart of mobility, every journey will continue to feel like a heavy toll on wallet, time, and the very lives of the people who keep the city moving.
Jasmin Dongare is a TRIP intern.
Mentored and edited by Sneha Yadav.
About the author
Jasmin Dongare holds a Master’s degree in Political Science. Her interests lie in public policy, governance, and education, with a keen focus on issues of equity and access. She aspires to build a career in research and policy-making, contributing to evidence-based solutions for India’s social challenges. Currently, she is a TRIP intern.
Sneha Yadav is an electronics engineer with post graduation in political science by qualification. Sneha has wide-ranging interests in the contemporary social, economic, administrative and political issues of India.
