Uttar Pradesh - Transportation

Transportation

The state has a large, multimodal transportation system with the largest road network in the country. The state is well connected to its nine neighboring states and almost all other parts of India through the national highways (NH). It boasts 42 national highways, with a total length of 4,942 km (9.6% of the total NH length in India). The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation was established in 1972 to provide economical, reliable, and comfortable transportation in the state with connecting services to adjoining states. All cities are connected to state highways, which carry traffic between major centres within the state. Other district roads and village roads provide villages accessibility to meet their social needs as also the means to transport agriculture produce from village to nearby markets. Major district roads provide a secondary function of linking between main roads and rural roads. Uttar Pradesh has the seventh-highest road density in India, (1,027 km per 1000 km2 as of 2002) and the largest surfaced urban-road network in the country (50,721 km as of 2002).

The National Golden Quadrilateral of India passes through Jhansi, Agra, Kanpur, Allahabad, and Varanasi. There is an existing expressway between Lucknow and Kanpur; and new expressways are being built between Agra and Noida and between Noida and Ballia, known as the Yamuna Expressway and the Ganga Expressway, respectively. The state has established the to develop seven new expressways. These projects includes Upper Ganga Canal Expressway, Bijnore–Moradabad–Fategarh Expressway, Jhansi–Kanpur–Lucknow–Gorakhpur–Kushinagar Expressway, Lucknow–Barabanki–Nanpara link Expressway, Agra–Kanpur Expressway, Kanpur 1st Outer Ring Road, From Narora up to 10 km before the boundary of Uttarakhand state.

The state has excellent civil aviation infrastructure with two international airports at Lucknow and Varanasi and four domestic airports located at Agra, Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Kanpur. Two of the airports, Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport in Lucknow and Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport in Varanasi, provide international service. The state has also proposed creating the Taj international airport in the Delhi‐NCR region. A stretch of the Ganges – from Allahabad to Haldia has been declared as a National Waterway (NW)-I; 600 km of which flows through Uttar Pradesh.

The state has the largest railway network in the country and the sixth highest railway density. As 0f 2011, there were 8,546 km (5,310 mi) of rail in the state. Allahabad is the headquarters of the North Central Railway and Gorakhpur is the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway. Lucknow Swarna Shatabdi Express, the second fastest shatabdi train, connects the Indian capital of New Delhi to Lucknow. This was the first train in India to get new German coaches. The railway stations of Lucknow NR, Kanpur Central, Varanasi Junction, Agra Cantt, Gorakhpur Jn and Mathura JN were included in the Indian Railways list of 50 world-class railway stations.