Racing against time: How green corridors are becoming lifelines in Noida-NCR

A donor heart was transported nearly 20 kilometres from Hindon Airport in Ghaziabad to Fortis Hospital in Noida’s Sector 62 in just 16 minutes after traffic police created a green corridor for the ambulance carrying the organ.

The heart, donated by a woman in Chandigarh, was flown to Hindon Airport by air ambulance before being taken by road to Fortis Hospital, where doctors successfully transplanted it into a 62-year-old patient, officials said.

Noida DCP (Traffic) Abhay Kumar Mishra told PTI that authorities coordinated traffic between Ghaziabad and Sector 62 on September 9 to ensure the ambulance could complete the journey with minimal interruptions.


Mishra said the green corridor, covering approximately 20 kilometres, was activated at 2 pm. The ambulance left Hindon Airport with the heart and reached Fortis Hospital in Sector 62 in 16 minutes.

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How green corridors help during medical emergencies

A green corridor is created by temporarily regulating traffic along a predetermined route so an ambulance carrying a transplant organ or a critically ill patient can travel with minimal delays.

The system can be particularly important in organ transplantation, where donated organs have a limited period of viability outside the donor’s body. Reducing travel time can therefore become an important part of the logistical chain between organ retrieval and transplantation.

The latest case is part of a series of similar traffic arrangements in Noida, Ghaziabad, Delhi and neighbouring areas in recent years. Authorities have repeatedly coordinated routes for organ transportation as well as other time-sensitive medical transfers.

Noida, Ghaziabad have coordinated several such corridors

In August last year, Noida traffic police established a six-kilometre green corridor between the DND Flyway and Child PGI in Sector 30 to facilitate the transfer of premature twins. Officials said the ambulance completed the journey in about four minutes.

The twins, a boy and a girl, had been born at 26 weeks at a private hospital in Delhi’s Najafgarh. Each weighed around 700 grams and was in intensive care with severe respiratory and digestive complications, according to Child PGI officials.

On June 2, 2025, authorities in Noida, Ghaziabad and Delhi coordinated a 17-kilometre green corridor between Yashoda Hospital and Fortis Escorts Hospital. The arrangement enabled a live donor heart to be transported between the hospitals in 19 minutes.

Earlier, on January 8, 2025, Noida and Faridabad police coordinated a 46.4-kilometre route between Amrita Hospital in Faridabad and Yatharth Hospital in Greater Noida to transport a kidney. The journey took 24 minutes and 40 seconds.

The practice is not new to the region. On October 1, 2021, traffic police created a 14-kilometre corridor between the Delhi-Noida Chilla border and Jaypee Hospital in Sector 128. An ambulance carrying a harvested organ covered the distance in 14 minutes. A separate corridor was also created that day between Sector 14-A and Jaypee Hospital for another organ-transplant emergency.

Doctors stress coordination beyond traffic clearance

Medical experts say the significance of green corridors goes beyond achieving unusually short travel times. The objective is to eliminate avoidable delays when medical teams are already working against time.

Dr P N Arora, chairman and managing director of Yashoda Group of Hospitals, described green corridors as potentially “invaluable” when time is critical, particularly for organ transportation and other emergencies.

Arora said successful implementation requires coordination among hospitals, police and traffic authorities, ambulance teams, airport authorities when involved and transplant coordinators.

He also emphasised advance planning and regular drills to identify possible bottlenecks before an emergency occurs. According to Arora, ambulance drivers and other road users should also understand why traffic is being regulated during such movements.

“Though green corridors cannot replace time-critical medical intervention, they can be part of the solution to ensure that given resources are not wasted,” he said.

Why every minute can matter in cardiac emergencies

Dr Akhil K Rustagi, senior director and head of cardiology at ShardaCare-Healthcity, said such coordinated traffic arrangements can also be relevant to cardiac emergencies.

“From a cardiology perspective, timely transportation is particularly important in cases of acute heart attack, where delays in reaching a facility capable of providing definitive treatment can result in greater heart muscle damage and affect the chances of recovery,” Rustagi said.

He added that similar coordination could help when critically ill cardiac patients need to be moved between hospitals for specialised treatment.

Rustagi said real-time communication, predetermined routes, GPS-enabled ambulance tracking and regular emergency drills could improve the system. Continued coordination between healthcare institutions and civic authorities, he added, could make green corridors faster and more dependable.

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Green corridors turn traffic management into medical logistics

The repeated use of green corridors across Noida and neighbouring cities highlights the logistical challenge of providing time-sensitive medical care in a densely populated and heavily congested urban region.

A green corridor does not alter a patient’s medical condition or increase the availability of healthcare resources. Its role is more specific: to reduce the time an ambulance spends navigating ordinary traffic.

For a donated heart awaiting transplantation, a critically ill newborn being transferred to specialised care or a cardiac patient requiring urgent treatment, reducing that road journey can be a crucial part of the overall emergency response.