33 hours to 12, 14 to 6 & 8 to 30 minutes: How Vande Bharat trains, expressways, bridges & new-age infrastructure are shrinking travel times

A journey that once took most of a day can now be completed in a few hours, while some routes that involved long detours have been cut down to minutes. Across India, new bridges, tunnels, expressways and faster trains are changing the way people travel between cities and remote regions.

As per a TOI report, the change is particularly visible on routes where rivers, mountains, congested roads or older railway infrastructure once added significantly to travel time. Government data highlights several projects that have helped reduce both travel distances and journey times.

Bridges cut long detours and hours of travel

As per TOI, Some of the most visible changes have come from bridges built across major rivers and waterways.


The Bhupen Hazarika Setu, also known as the Dhola-Sadiya Bridge, has reduced the journey between Rupai in Assam and Meka/Roing in Arunachal Pradesh from around six hours to about one hour.

In Assam, the Bogibeel Bridge has similarly transformed connectivity between Dhemaji and Dibrugarh, bringing a journey that could take almost a full day down to around one to two hours.

Mumbai has seen a major reduction in travel time with the Atal Setu. The Mumbai Trans Harbour Link has created a faster connection towards Navi Mumbai and has reduced the Mumbai-Navi Mumbai journey time substantially. The 21.8-km, six-lane bridge includes about 16.5 km over the sea.

On the railway network, the Kosi Rail Mahasetu has brought the Nirmali-Saraigarh journey down from around eight hours to just 30 minutes. The rail distance has also fallen from nearly 300 km to about 22 km.

Tunnels take traffic through mountains instead of around them

In hilly regions, tunnels are helping trains and road users avoid winding routes and difficult terrain.

The 9.02-km Atal Tunnel has cut around 46 km from the Manali-Leh route and saves roughly four to five hours of travel. The project has also provided an all-weather alternative through a region where movement was earlier affected by the Rohtang Pass.

The Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Tunnel has shortened the Jammu-Srinagar route by around 30 km and saves nearly two hours. The Banihal-Qazigund twin-tube tunnel has also reduced travel time by around one and a half hours.

Further east, the Sela Tunnel has improved the Tezpur-Tawang connection by cutting more than an hour from the journey and providing an all-weather route through the mountainous terrain.

Expressways turn long road trips into shorter journeys

India's expanding expressway network is also changing travel times between major cities. The Delhi-Meerut Expressway reduced the journey between Delhi and Meerut from around two and a half hours to about 50 minutes. The Bengaluru-Mysuru route has seen a similar change, with travel time falling from nearly three hours to around 75 minutes.

The Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor has reduced the journey from more than six hours to around two and a half hours.

Some of the biggest reductions are expected on longer inter-city routes. The Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway is planned to bring the Delhi-Amritsar journey down from around eight hours to four hours, while the Delhi-Katra journey is expected to fall from about 14 hours to six hours.

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is being developed with the aim of cutting the road journey from around 33 hours to about 12 hours. A government statement in February 2026 said the project was scheduled for completion by 2027.

India had 3,644 km of access-controlled high-speed corridors and expressways operational by March 2026, according to a government infrastructure factsheet.

Vande Bharat trains add speed to existing railway routes

The push to reduce journey times is not limited to new railway lines. Indian Railways has also been speeding up existing services.

Under the 2026 timetable, 549 trains were speeded up across the network. Twenty trains gained at least an hour, while 48 trains became 31 to 59 minutes faster. Another 105 services gained between 16 and 30 minutes, while 376 trains were speeded up by five to 15 minutes.

Vande Bharat services have added another layer of faster inter-city travel. The New Delhi-Varanasi service is around 40-50 per cent faster than earlier services on the route, while the Katra-Srinagar service can save two to three hours.

Other services have also delivered sizeable reductions. The Banaras-Khajuraho Vande Bharat saves around two hours and 40 minutes, while the Ernakulam-Bengaluru service cuts more than two hours from the journey.

The Vande Bharat Sleeper service between Howrah and Guwahati has also reduced the journey from around 17 hours to about 14 hours. The service has 16 air-conditioned coaches and can carry around 823 passengers.

India's bullet train plans could cut journey times further

The next major shift is expected from high-speed rail. The 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor is being developed with an operational speed of 320 kmph and a design speed of 350 kmph. The project is planned to bring the Mumbai-Ahmedabad journey down to around one hour and 58 minutes. It will have 12 stations and include a roughly 7-km undersea rail tunnel beneath Thane Creek.

The government has also identified seven high-speed rail corridors covering nearly 4,000 km, with expected investment of around Rs 16 lakh crore.

The proposed routes are:

• Delhi-Varanasi
• Varanasi-Patna-Siliguri
• Chennai-Bengaluru
• Bengaluru-Hyderabad
• Chennai-Hyderabad
• Mumbai-Pune
• Pune-Hyderabad

The proposed network is expected to bring several major city pairs within much shorter travel windows. Government projections put the Delhi-Varanasi journey at around 3 hours 50 minutes, Chennai-Bengaluru at about 1 hour 13 minutes and Mumbai-Pune at around 48 minutes once the respective high-speed corridors are developed.

From shorter routes to faster journeys

The common thread across these projects is not simply higher speed. Bridges are removing river crossings and detours, tunnels are cutting through difficult terrain, expressways are replacing slower road routes, while newer trains and upgraded railway infrastructure are reducing journey times on existing networks.

For passengers, the result is straightforward: routes that once consumed several hours, and in some cases an entire day, are increasingly becoming journeys of a few hours or even minutes.


Inputs from TOI