How urban India commutes: Workers take to two-wheelers, and students walk or take the bus

Conducted between July 2025 and June 2026, the NSO survey tracks how Indians get to work and education institutions, how long it takes, and what it costs.

Two-wheelers carry more than half of urban India's workers to their workplaces, while students in cities mostly take the bus or walk, according to the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), the country's first nationwide survey of how households travel, released this week.

Among urban workers aged 15 and above who travelled at least 1 km to a fixed or non-fixed workplace, 52.3% used a two-wheeler as their primary mode. (Representative image/ Edited on Canva)

The survey covered 492,023 households and 2,034,371 people across 14,274 rural and 10,377 urban first-stage sampling units, the villages and urban blocks from which households are drawn. It recorded regular travel for education, employment and other purposes by household members aged six and above.

The NHTS counts a trip only if it covers 1 km or more. Where a journey uses more than one mode, such as an auto-rickshaw to a metro station followed by the metro itself, the survey records the mode covering the longest distance as the primary mode.

Graphics: HT

The National Statistics Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the findings of the survey, which was conducted between July 2025 and June 2026.

Workers rely on two-wheelers

Graphics: HT

Male urban workers leaned even harder on two-wheelers, which 57% of them used as their primary mode. Women relied far more on buses, the primary mode for 21.7% of female urban workers, more than twice the 9.2% share across all urban workers.

For urban workers travelling to a fixed workplace, the average trip takes 27 minutes. Nearly four in five (79.3%) reach work within 30 minutes, and 16.6% take between 30 minutes and an hour. An urban worker spends ₹1,044 a month on average travelling to and from a fixed workplace.

Students take the bus or walk

About 68.1% of urban students aged six and above made trips of 1 km or more to an educational institution during the survey's reference period. Buses were the most common mode for them at 33.7%, followed by walking (29.6%), auto-rickshaws (14.4%), two-wheelers (11.5%) and bicycles (9.1%).

Across India, nearly half of students aged 6-14 (47.3%) walked to school, while 28.4% took buses and 11.9% cycled. Among students aged 15-29, buses led at 31%, walking dropped to 22.2% and bicycles rose to 21.4%, almost level with walking.

Rail matters

Nationally, metro, suburban rail, monorail and tram together carried 5% of urban workers.

The share was far higher where cities have large rail networks. Among the states and Union territories the survey highlights, Maharashtra recorded the highest share at 20.7%, more than four times the national urban figure, followed by West Bengal at 16.5%, more than three times, and Delhi at 14.4%, nearly three times.

In Maharashtra and West Bengal, suburban and local rail networks are key to daily urban mobility. In Delhi, the metro network is widespread.