Inefficient roads of India
My office is 4 km from home in Noida.
I spend 45 minutes getting there every single day.
That's not a typo.
4 km. 45 minutes. In a car.
At that speed, I could've walked, gotten a chai break, and still reached before the traffic cleared.
But here's the thing, I'm not even the worst off.
Look at what's happening across India's biggest corporate cities right now:
🔴 Bengaluru: 67.5 mins avg | 3,94,943 trips
🔴 Delhi-NCR: 67.5 mins avg | 3,01,488 trips
🔴 Mumbai: 62.5 mins avg | 22,727 trips
🔴 Chennai: 61 mins avg | 1,66,445 trips
🔴 Hyderabad: 59.5 mins avg | 2,09,999 trips
🔴 Pune: 59 mins avg | 2,49,068 trips
Nearly 14 LAKH corporate cab trips tracked.
Every single city nearing the 1-hour mark just to reach office.
And this isn't general commute data.
This is specifically GCC employees. Cab pickups. Cab drops.
The most organised, well-funded, globally backed offices in India, and their employees are still losing 2 hours daily sitting in traffic.
We talk about India's GCC boom like it's the future of work.
400,000 trips in Bengaluru alone.
300,000 in Delhi-NCR.
World-class talent. World-class offices.
But the roads connecting homes to those offices? Still stuck in 2004.
The irony is brutal.
We're building infrastructure for global capability.
But our daily infrastructure can't move a person 4 km in under 45 minutes.
Productivity lost in traffic.
Focus gone before the first meeting.
Energy drained before the laptop even opens.
2 hours of your day just gone. Every single day.
That's 10 hours a week.
40 hours a month.
Almost 500 hours a year.
Just sitting in traffic.
The smartest thing Indian corporates could do right now isn't just hire better talent or build fancier offices.
It's solve the commute problem for their own people.
Flexible hours.
Satellite offices.
Genuine hybrid policies.
Last-mile transport solutions.
Because the talent is here.
The ambition is here.
The work ethic is here.
The road just isn't.
And until we fix that, we're leaving hundreds of productive hours on the table every single year. more
I spend 45 minutes getting there every single day.
That's not a typo.
4 km. 45 minutes. In a car.
At that speed, I could've walked, gotten a chai break, and still reached before the traffic cleared.
But here's the thing, I'm not even the worst off.
Look at what's happening across India's biggest corporate cities right now:
🔴 Bengaluru: 67.5 mins avg | 3,94,943 trips
🔴 Delhi-NCR: 67.5 mins avg | 3,01,488 trips
🔴 Mumbai: 62.5 mins avg | 22,727 trips
🔴 Chennai: 61 mins avg | 1,66,445 trips
🔴 Hyderabad: 59.5 mins avg | 2,09,999 trips
🔴 Pune: 59 mins avg | 2,49,068 trips
Nearly 14 LAKH corporate cab trips tracked.
Every single city nearing the 1-hour mark just to reach office.
And this isn't general commute data.
This is specifically GCC employees. Cab pickups. Cab drops.
The most organised, well-funded, globally backed offices in India, and their employees are still losing 2 hours daily sitting in traffic.
We talk about India's GCC boom like it's the future of work.
400,000 trips in Bengaluru alone.
300,000 in Delhi-NCR.
World-class talent. World-class offices.
But the roads connecting homes to those offices? Still stuck in 2004.
The irony is brutal.
We're building infrastructure for global capability.
But our daily infrastructure can't move a person 4 km in under 45 minutes.
Productivity lost in traffic.
Focus gone before the first meeting.
Energy drained before the laptop even opens.
2 hours of your day just gone. Every single day.
That's 10 hours a week.
40 hours a month.
Almost 500 hours a year.
Just sitting in traffic.
The smartest thing Indian corporates could do right now isn't just hire better talent or build fancier offices.
It's solve the commute problem for their own people.
Flexible hours.
Satellite offices.
Genuine hybrid policies.
Last-mile transport solutions.
Because the talent is here.
The ambition is here.
The work ethic is here.
The road just isn't.
And until we fix that, we're leaving hundreds of productive hours on the table every single year. more
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View all 17 comments Below 17 comments
We are all responsible for this sorry state of affairs. We buy two wheelers and cars and never wish to dispose (scrap) our old vehicles, even if they are 30 years old or not in service. Govt has no policy to scrap the old vehicles but interested only in banning the old vehicles. Indians are not that rich to just throw their vehicles. Roads are not build or widened. I saw roads with the same width even after 50 years of their original laying. Govt wants to built roads only with toll collections. And the Minister boasts of making roads which can replace the runways. The engineers of PWD or Municipality or NH never repair the roads. They allow the pathols to remain as a punishment to the riding public. more
Apr 18
There is one more aspect to this. Our cars consume a lot more fuel for the same distance (almost double) when driving in such conditions. I have seen that average consumption when driving for an hour and covering 50 km is 21 km/litre. Under City driving, it falls to 10 km/litre or even lower. That is the price we and the country pay due to poor traffic planning more
Apr 13
We are lacking in balanced infrastructure. To add to this there is civil work all over the place. Things can improve a lot with better traffic regulation and discipline, Do it right the first time roads and utilities so that constant digging and repair doesn't stall traffic. more
Apr 06
