Transport in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

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Transportation in Hyderabad, India

Contents 1 Airports 2 Roads 3 Buses 4 Rails 5 Public Transport 6 Notes

[edit] Airports

Hyderabad city has an airport since 1930s at Begumpet. This airport provides two terminals, for domestic and international travels. The airport provides flights to all major destinations in India, as well as connections to locations in Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe. Currently, Hyderabad has non stop flights to and from various other foreign cities like Amsterdam (KLM), Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Lufthansa), Singapore (Air India, Indian Airlines and Singapore Airlines), Dubai (Emirates and Indian Airlines), Bangkok (Indian Airlines), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysian Airlines), Colombo (Sri Lankan Airlines), Dammam (Air India), Doha (Qatar Airways), Jeddah (Air India and Saudi Arabian Airlines), Muscat (Oman Air) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabian Airlines).

A project to create a larger International Airport is underway at Shamshabad, which lies outskirts of the city. The new airport, once completed, will be able to provide much needed infrastructure to handle large aircraft, and international traffic. The airport is expected to be one of the best in this region and will house world-class facilities. The airport is being developed to cater to a total of 7 million passengers a year and will in the final stage be able to cater to 40 million passengers a year. The total cost of the project is Rs 1,330 crore. The airport will be built on an area of 5,400 acres and will have the longest runway among Indian airports and will be able to handle the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380. The work on the flyover linking Mehdipatnam to the Shamshabad Airport has started, and it is expected to be one of the biggest projects undertaken by Hyderabad Urban Development Authority, also known widely as HUDA.^[1]

[edit] Roads

Hyderabad is well connected to many other locations in India, such as Bangalore, Mumbai, Kurnool, Guntur, Nagpur, Warangal, Pune, and Vijaywada, either through directly or through intermediary locations. The highway (express way) network linking Hyderabad to various parts of the country is very good. Indian National Highways, NH-7, NH-9 and NH-202 pass through the city. The city shall also be part of the North-South Corridor.Being in the heart of Telangana it is very well connected to all the towns and cities of the region.

The city has also one of the best laid out internal road systems. A series of flyovers decrease the traffic congestion in the city. Many of the important roads are 3-lane on either side. Due to the burgeoning number of personal vehicles, the city is beginning to face traffic problems. As a measure to ease this, the city plan calls for an inner ring road going around Hyderabad within the city limits and a yet to be constructed, but planned, outer ring road^[2] outside the city limits. These ring roads are expected to ease the traffic congestion by a lot inside the city since most heavy vehicles which pass through the city on the national highways can now bypass the city using them.

However, as in most in Indian cities, due to increasing number of vehicles, the city traffic has grown leading to chaotic traffic snarls and a lack of perceptible lane discipline. Driving has become a stressful experience for vehicle owners. Accidents are on the rise especially with two wheelers and Auto-rickshaws.

A new Expressway called Hyderabad Outer Ring Road of about 160 km is being built now and will be done in about 4 - 5 years.^[3]

[edit] Buses

Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation^[4] established in 1932 started as a unit of the Nizam State Railways-Road Transport Division with 27 buses. It consists of about 19,000 strong bus fleet currently; APSRTC is the largest bus transportation service, which is undertaken by the state, in the world and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Hyderabad has the third largest bus station facility in Asia, with 72 platforms for 72 buses to load passengers at a time. This earlier was the largest in Asia after it lost to shanghai's bus station, China in 2005. The second largest being the Chennai Moffusil Bus Terminal (CMBT) in Chennai. It is named officially as the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, and called locally as the Imlibun Bus Station.

The APSRTC operates point to point bus services which connect important places within the city, with a very good frequency. This enables passengers to commute quickly between any two places within the city. There are 4000+ buses in the city running the point to point service.^[5] APSRTC has several kinds of services like the

• Veera,
• Metro Express and an
• Ordinary service.

Veera and Metro express are luxury and semi-luxury services respectively, and have few stops between any two points in the city. This enables passengers to commute quickly between any two places within the city. Information about APSRTC

[edit] Rails

Hyderabad has a light rail transportation system known as the MultiModal Transport System (MMTS)

(MMTS Photo feature). The MMTS connects various parts of the city with Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Lingampally and Falaknuma. Hyderabad is currently scheduled to get a Metro system to help ease urban congestion. Nationally, too, Hyderabad and especially Secunderabad are considered as among the important railway cities. The South Central Railway headquarters are located at Secunderabad.

There are three main railway stations:

• Secunderabad Railway Station (Which recently got ISO 9002 Certification)
• Hyderabad Railway Station (Nampally)
• Kachiguda Railway Station. A lot of development has come up at the Kachiguda Railway Station, like an extension of the platform. It is now the starting point of many trains like Kachiguda-Bangalore, Kachiguda-Tirupathi etc., to divert the traffic flow from Secunderabad.

[edit] Public Transport

Most of the people use the local APSRTC buses for transport. The yellow colored Auto Rickshaw usually referred to as an "auto", is the most widely used taxi. Recently other automobiles like motorcycles and cars were introduced as taxi. The latest addition for public transport is the MMTS. For the future, other transport methods were suggested including a Monorail system.

[edit] Notes