Air: Sahara International Airport is an important
point of entry for many foreign airlines, and nearby Santa Cruz Airport
serves domestic flights. Mumbai handles about 60% of the international and
nearly 40% of the domestic air traffic in India. International flights
connect Mumbai to all the major cities of the world.
Mumbai Airport has two terminals, Terminal I for domestic operations and
Terminal II for international operations. Both terminals are situated
about 4-km apart. Terminal I has two distinct terminal facilities viz.
Terminal I-A and Terminal I-B which are situated approximately 750m from
each other. While Terminal I-A caters to all domestic flights operated by
Indian Airlines and Alliance Air, the Terminal I-B caters to all other
domestic airlines.
Terminal II is one block of buildings, which has two units viz. Terminal
II-A and Terminal II-B and are on either side of the Visitors Concourse.
All Air-India flights are operated from Terminal II-B.
Rail: Mumbai (Bombay) is the railhead for the Western and Central
Railways, and trains from the city carry goods and passengers to all parts
of India. Two suburban electric train systems provide the main public
transportation and they daily convey hundreds of thousands of commuters in
the metropolitan region.
Road: Mumbai (Bombay) is well connected by a network of roads to
the rest of India. There is also a municipally owned bus fleet over here.
Water: The facilities provided by its harbor, make Mumbai,
India's major western port. Though other major ports have sprung up on the
West Coast - Kandla to the north and Goa and Kochi to the south - Mumbai
still handles more than 40% of India's maritime trade.
Local Transportation in Mumbai: Unlike most other Indian cities,
there are no auto-rickshaws (three-wheeler vehicles) in the city center.
Rickshaws do ply at the suburbs. The minimum fare is Rs 7.50/-. Mumbai has
a huge fleet of metered black-and-yellow taxis, it can be flagged down at
any street corner and fares are paid by meter. Cool-cabs are also in, they
are the blue and white air-conditioned ones. The fares are reasonable
enough.
Mumbai's Local Trains And Taxis
The lives of millions of people who live in Mumbai and suburbs opens with
the starting of the local trains, namely the Harbour, the Central and the
Western, which awaken the city to a new day. They are not as fast as the
Bullet Train or as smooth as the trains plying on the magnetic tracts. But
Mumbai's local trains are considered to be one of the most efficiently run
commuter services in the world.
There
are as many as 961 local train services plying on the Western line
carrying over 23 million commuters everyday while the 1070 services on the
Central and the Harbour play hosts to over 30 million commuters daily. The
railway tracks in the entire city rest for a meagre four hours a day. It
is during these night hours that the working staffs of the railways,
repairs and services complete the network for the next day.
The local trains are the main arteries of Mumbai. A halt or a disruption
of the local train services would mean an imminent standstill to the
thriving activities of the entire communication network, a near complete
motionless city. It is stated that over eleven million people travel by
the Indian railways every day. And interestingly, out of these eleven
million, over five million travel every day by the local trains in Mumbai
and its suburbs, in all directions.
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) formerly known as Victoria
Terminus (VT) makes a striking sight with its cathedral-like spires,
arches and turrets. Local and outstation trains ply from here. CST and the
Church Gate station are the busiest centres right from the wee hours until
the last service. Located at the heart of the city, these stations are a
part of Mumbai's pictorial encyclopaedia.
BEST (BrihanMumbai Electric Supply and Transport) buses are the perfect
alternative. Plying over 1,000 routes with an estimated 3,500 buses, of
which 50 are special air-conditioned coaches, the BEST transports over 4.5
million commuters everyday.
The city also takes pride in its honest and professionally run cabs and
three wheeler rickshaws. Without them the city would be void of the moving
stagnant traffic life and the busy roads.
Pune
(124 km)
Nasik
(185 km)
Surat (248
km)
Mahabaleshwar
(290 km)
Aurangabad
(388 km)