In Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, black-and-yellow shared taxis have become the lifeline of daily commuting, less by design than by default. As government bus systems falter and traffic snarls intensify, residents are left navigating a costly, fragmented and car-clogged mobility landscape.
For Daker Mynsong, a postgraduate student, walking remains the most viable option to reach St Anthony’s College. Almost every day, he walks around 2-3 km from his home in Nongthymai to the college in Lachumiere, a journey that takes him roughly 30 minutes. Without a two-wheeler of his own, his only alternative is the city’s ubiquitous black-and-yellow local taxis. But, he says, “Taking a taxi every day would cost over Rs 1,500 a month. Walking is the cheapest.”
Students living nearby often walk, but for those further afield, Shillong’s steep, winding terrain makes walking impractical. To avoid the costly taxis, many have recently turned to two-wheelers.
Daiaphira, an assistant professor at St Anthony’s College, explained the relative expenses: “I commute from Mawkynroh to college, around 9 kilometres, in about 20 minutes on my scooter. It costs me roughly Rs 800 a month in fuel. Public transport, however, takes over an hour and costs close to Rs 4,000 monthly. Though taxis are the most suitable public transport option, they take a longer route — around 11-12 km.”
Shillong is gridlocked due to vehicles. The undulating terrain of Shillong naturally restricts road width and, by extension, the number of vehicles it can accommodate. Yet, the city’s vehicle volume has far exceeded this capacity. The problem escalates during the summer and monsoon seasons, when a surge in tourist vehicles further chokes the narrow, winding roads.
National Highway 6 links Guwahati to Shillong via Byrnihat and Umiam, forming one of the main arterial routes into the city. This corridor leads to Police Bazar — the commercial heart of Shillong — via Mawlai, Garikhana, Rhino Point, Civil Point and Barik Point. From Barik, the road branches off towards Laitumkhrah, Dhankheti and Laitlum.
To ease congestion, a newly built bypass now diverts incoming traffic before Mawlai, taking a route via the Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT) and North Eastern Hill University (NEHU). From NEHU, vehicles can reach Police Bazar through Polo Ground, another central hub. This bypass spans approximately 14 km, compared to the older 9.5 km route through Mawlai. However, the bypass, too, becomes gridlocked, particularly on Mondays, when public and private sector employees return to work after weekend breaks.
These main corridors are further fed by narrow, winding internal roads that are often jammed to the point of standstill. “From Laitjem in Upper Shillong to the college is less than 17 kilometres, but before the road widening, it sometimes took over two hours,” said Diaphira, a lecturer at St Anthony’s College. “Now, it’s closer to an hour.”
Diaphira commutes daily by local taxi, spending over Rs 3,000 a month and changing vehicles once en route. “There’s one bus on my route, but it doesn’t come near my home. So taxis are more convenient. Fares have shot up since the Covid lockdowns,” she said.
Lapongnai Chyni, another academic from Upper Shillong, said her two daughters also rely on private transport to commute to college and school. “My elder daughter drives to St. Anthony’s—it takes over 40 minutes. My younger daughter rides her scooter to the BSF school, and that journey takes more than an hour,” she explained.
Chyni herself teaches at Tirot Sing Memorial College in Mairang and carpools with colleagues for the 45-km journey — something she finds less stressful than navigating central Shillong.
The city’s black-and-yellow local taxis, typically Maruti Suzuki 800s and Altos, have become integral to life in Shillong. “Taxis are a culture here,” Diaphira said. “If you don’t own a car, you taxi.”
Their dominance is largely due to the collapse of government-run public transport. Interviews conducted by this reporter at major hubs — Police Bazar, Bara Bazar and Laitumkhrah — indicate that a significant proportion of daily commuters depend on shared taxis.
Debu Nag, a driver based in Police Bazar, said he makes five to six trips daily, ferrying around 25 to 30 passengers in total. Other drivers report similar figures.
According to the General Secretary of the East Khasi Hills Local Taxi Welfare Association, approximately 2,000 such taxis operate on Shillong’s roads on working days, each averaging six to seven trips with five passengers per trip. This suggests that over 65,000 people use these taxis daily.
While taxis dominate, Shillong does have a layered public transport system, albeit fragmented and poorly integrated. Chief among them are the “Red Buses,” procured under the central government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Manufactured by Tata and introduced in 2011, the buses were initially operated by the Meghalaya Transport Corporation (MTC).
However, within months, management was transferred to the Shillong Public Transport Service (SPTS), under the Urban Affairs Department, in a public-private partnership model. These buses were leased to self-help groups (SHG) for daily operations, a practice that continues today.
“The Centre launched the scheme in 2008, but states were responsible for implementing it,” said Deepak Singh, a researcher at NEHU and executive editor of digital news portal Hub News. “A separate entity like SPTS was needed because Urban Affairs didn’t have a dedicated transport wing. MTC did the groundwork and ran the buses briefly before the service was outsourced.”
According to Ricky Kharkongor, Assistant Monitoring Officer at the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority, 90 red buses currently remain in the fleet, with 60 plying within the city. The other 30 are allocated to universities, hospitals and schools. “The buses range from 25 to 35 seats and are generally limited to four trips per day because of traffic,” he said. Kharkongor also confirmed the 65,000 daily taxi commuter estimate.
Other options include buses operated directly by MTC, but these are mostly reserved for government offices, institutions and hospitals, not daily public commuters. Then there are the shared Maxi Cabs, mostly Tata Magics, operated under the Shillong Supplementary Public Transport Service (SSPTS). These function similarly to the Red Buses, in that they are government-procured but privately operated. However, only a few currently operate within Shillong, rendering their contribution minimal.
Shillong’s iconic wooden buses, known locally as Bos Dieng, once formed the backbone of public transport. Run by the Shillong City Bus Syndicate, they date back to the 1940s. “Those buses are part of our collective memory,” said local activist Kyrsoibor Pyrtuh. “They carried everything — people, bamboo baskets, goods. You could always count on them.”
By the 1990s, however, they began disappearing, replaced by private buses and taxis. “People found taxis more convenient as they stopped right outside your home,” Pyrtuh added. A few vintage buses still ply on routes to Smit and Sohra.
In 2023, the government introduced a new initiative: STEMS (Sustainable Transport and Efficient Mobility System). Currently limited to school transport, the plan is to eventually scale it up into a full-fledged public service.
While the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board reported that Shillong’s particulate matter (PM) 10 and PM 2.5 levels in 2022-23 mostly remained in the ‘Good’ category, a recent study by international air quality group Airvoice paints a more troubling picture.
Between January and July 2024, Shillong exceeded national air quality limits on 20 per cent of days — ten times higher than the permissible 2 per cent threshold.
“PM2.5 spikes were observed,” Airvoice researchers told this researcher. “While major sources include vehicle emissions and tyre wear, household waste burning and chemical reactions in the atmosphere also contribute.”
They noted that while the link to rising vehicle numbers was likely, it fell outside the study’s scope.
Shillong’s traffic woes stem from a surge in private vehicles, especially two-wheelers. While the District Transport Office could not provide up-to-date figures, media reports suggested that around 50 per cent of Meghalaya’s vehicles are registered in East Khasi Hills, where Shillong is located.
The Shillong Urban Mobility Plan 2024 aimed to cut congestion by promoting public transport. It noted that commuters spend an average of 70 minutes daily in traffic, with speeds dropping below 15 km per hour — and even below 5 kmph at peak chokepoints. The plan targets a public transport mode share of 30 per cent (up from 11 per cent) by 2030, while reducing private vehicle use to 10 per cent (down from 36 per cent) and increasing non-motorised transport to 35 per cent (from 12 per cent).
Among the new options proposed are ropeways and cable cars. These recommendations were part of the World Bank-funded Meghalaya Integrated Transport Project (MITP), which appointed consultancy firm Dalberg to design solutions. However, despite repeated attempts, this reporter was unable to obtain an update from MITP on the project’s current status.
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.