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On any given weekday, Jumi Boruah spends over three hours commuting to and from her workplace — despite living just 8.5 kilometres away. The 40-year-old office-goer from Beharbari travels via shared Tata Magic vans and city buses, enduring Guwahati’s sweltering heat and overcrowded roads.
“Going to Christian Basti from Beharbari means I have to take the GS Road, the city’s main arterial route, which is always congested,” she said. “Even public transport isn’t cheap. I spend nearly Rs 1,500 a month.”
Jumi’s experience mirrors that of thousands of daily commuters in Assam’s capital, where short distances often require long, exhausting journeys.
Pallavi Deka, a lecturer at Handique Girls’ College, drives over an hour daily to reach her workplace just 11 kilometres away. “Driving through GS Road drains you. The traffic cuts down my mileage, and I spend almost Rs 10,000 a month on fuel,” she said.
With both public and private transport failing to provide relief, two-wheelers have become the preferred mode of transport. In fact, two-wheelers now outnumber all other vehicle categories in the city.
“For a 4-5 km trip, it takes nearly an hour by public transport, but only 30 minutes on my scooter,” said Protyush Dutta, a young professional. “It’s also cheaper.”
Guwahati’s road network is struggling to cope with rising vehicle numbers. The city spans roughly 31 kilometres east to west, from Jalukbari to Narengi Satgaon. The outer corridor, via National Highway 27, remains relatively free-flowing. But travel along the GS Road, often takes two hours for the same journey.
Public transport is limited and fragmented. Commuters often rely on “intermediate public transport” (IPT) modes such as Tata Magic vans, e-rickshaws, autos and cycle rickshaws to reach city buses.
Though a new master plan for 2025-2045 has been drafted, commuters remain sceptical. Many still cite data from the Union Ministry of Urban Development’s 2016 ‘Operation Document’, which reported Guwahati’s average traffic speed at 20 km per hour, with a trip length of just 4.1 km. Experts now estimate this has risen slightly to 6.3 km.
Arshel Akhter, Guwahati’s “bicycle mayor” and co-founder of the PURVCA Foundation, projected from the 2016 data that two-wheeler use had grown from 20 per cent to 25 per cent, and four-wheelers from 18 per cent to 20 per cent. Intermediate transport use also increased from 12 per cent to 15 per cent. However, cycling appears to be in decline.
“Cycling has dropped to around 14 per cent from 21 per cent in 2016, while walking remains steady,” Akhter said. “Public transport usage has barely changed.”
Despite a variety of public transport options — from buses to app-based taxis like Ola and Uber — daily commuting remains difficult.
The Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) operates 256 electric and 100 CNG buses. These are the only government public transport options on Guwahati's roads. “Each bus makes about 4-5 trips daily, carrying around 100,000 passengers on a working day,” said an ASTC official. These numbers dip sharply during floods, which submerge roads for hours or even days.
Guwahati also had around 200 private city buses, according to Devraj Das, secretary of the Metropolitan Transport Association Guwahati (MTAG). However, not all of them were permitted to operate daily under a new regulation aimed at reducing traffic congestion. “The bus owners are now running at a loss, especially after the introduction of new rules and the deployment of AC electric buses. Passengers prefer air-conditioned buses, particularly during the summer,” Das told this reporter.
Private city buses are even more restricted. Under a recently introduced “time card” system, each bus is compelled to observe a fixed interval between trips, limiting them to just 2-3 trips a day. “This gap between trips has made operations less efficient and less profitable,” Das explained. Yet, despite their limited schedules, private buses still carried a significant share of commuters — only slightly fewer than those using ASTC’s electric and CNG buses.
Other modes of public transport filled in the gaps. As of 2025, Guwahati had 1,160 four-wheeled IPT vehicles such as Tata Magics and 2,769 auto-rickshaws, according to the District Transport Office (DTO). The city also had a large but unregulated number of e-rickshaws — commonly known as tomtoms or pilpilis. “It's difficult to provide an exact count. These e-rickshaws don’t require permits, and many are assembled locally in varied forms,” a DTO official said.
At a stand near Latasil Field, battery-operated rickshaw drivers estimated that about 400 vehicles operated in their zone alone. “Each of us makes several trips in a 12-hour day. Collectively, we estimate that fewer than 1,000 passengers use these rickshaws daily in our area,” one driver said. In flood-prone areas, these rickshaws become essential.
Only city buses follow fixed routes; other modes often flout route regulations despite official instructions. Meanwhile, private cars and two-wheelers continue to dominate road space. Cycling, once a staple mode of transport, has become increasingly unsafe.
A 2025 study by Indian Institute Of Technology Guwahati, led by Sharad Gokhale, paints a dire picture. Submitted to the National Green Tribunal’s Eastern Zone Bench in March, the report emerged from a 2022 case against Assam Pollution Control Board.
Senior advocate Vikram Rajkhowa, involved in the environmental litigation, confirmed that the study had been submitted to the NGT’s Eastern Zone Bench and was now a public document. “This report was commissioned following cases filed in 2022 against the Pollution Control Board of Assam (PCBA), which had then informed the court of its plan to carry out the study,” he told this reporter. “The final report was submitted in March 2025.”
According to the research, two-wheelers accounted for 50 per cent of all registered vehicles in the city, and petrol-run four-wheelers another 27 per cent.
The vehicle boom has deep environmental consequences. Two-wheelers contributed 52 per cent of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions and 21 per cent of PM10, due to their sheer volume. Road dust was the top source of PM10 at 28 per cent, while transport made up 21 per cent.
Gokhale noted: “Petrol-run two-wheelers emit less than cars, but their large numbers make them significant contributors.” He also cited other major pollution sources: hill-cutting, garbage burning, small industries and construction dust.
In 2023, Guwahati gained unwanted notoriety as the world’s second most polluted city, according to Swiss air monitoring firm IQAir. Pollution spikes during the dry season—from December to March—and drops with the monsoon.
Flyovers, often touted as solutions, have proven disruptive and short-sighted. “Authorities in charge of transportation and planning often exhibit a ‘windshield bias’ — a car-centric approach that overlooks the needs of cyclists and pedestrians,” said Akhter.
According to him, Guwahati requires at least 800 city buses for its projected population of over 1.6 million, yet public transport remains sparse and disorganised.
Gokhale also pointed out the lack of a smooth traffic flow as a factor behind high pollution levels. “Buses stop randomly, vehicles start and stop frequently, raising emissions significantly,” he said.
This article is part of our series on how India moves, which looks at the relationship between air quality and human mobility in cities and towns.
Sandipan Talukdar is a Guwahati based journalist.