Key Details
The National Statistics Office’s National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) covers July 2025–June 2026 and draws on responses from 4.92 lakh households. Its figures describe different kinds of journeys, so the percentages below have different denominators.
Journey | Finding |
|---|---|
Travel to work | 42.6% of workers making work trips used a two-wheeler as their primary mode; the share was 52.3% in urban areas. |
Travel to education | Among students making trips to their institution, 37.0% walked, 29.5% took a bus and 15.8% cycled. |
Commute time | 87.6% of travelling students reached their institution within 30 minutes; 83.4% of workers travelling to a fixed workplace did so. |
Monthly work commute cost | ₹785 per worker travelling to a fixed workplace: ₹1,044 urban and ₹612 rural. |
Overnight household trips | 55.8% used buses as their primary mode and 17.7% used intercity rail; 70.2% were for social, communication or religious activities. |
The survey covers trips of at least 1 km. “Primary mode” means the mode used for the longest distance on a trip.
Work Trips Depend Heavily on Two-Wheelers
Among workers aged 15 and above, 57.6% made a within-day trip of at least 1 km to a fixed or non-fixed workplace. Two-wheelers were the leading mode for those who travelled, followed by walking at 28.3%. The two-wheeler share was substantially higher in urban than rural areas, while walking was more common among rural workers.
The survey also records a difference in work-trip participation: 61.9% of male workers made such trips, compared with 41.9% of female workers. That is a difference in recorded travel, not by itself an explanation of why workers’ journeys differ.
Walking and Buses Shape Journeys to Education
For students aged six and above travelling at least 1 km to their educational institution, walking and buses together accounted for two-thirds of primary modes. The average journey took 23 minutes, and most students left between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. Average monthly spending on these trips was ₹443, rising to ₹617 in urban areas against ₹361 in rural areas.
For workers travelling to a fixed workplace, the average journey took 25 minutes. Their higher urban commuting cost—₹1,044 a month, compared with ₹612 in rural areas—adds a useful dimension to a transport picture that might otherwise be judged by journey time alone.
Longer Journeys Have a Different Transport Pattern
Buses and intercity rail together accounted for 73.5% of household overnight trips. Cars accounted for 15.1%. Social, communication and religious activities dominated the purposes recorded, far ahead of culture, leisure, sport and tourism at 7.4%.
This is where the NHTS connects with MoSPI’s earlier Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (DTES), which TPE covered in September. Both cover July 2025–June 2026, but they answer different questions: DTES examines visitor trips and spending; NHTS maps travel modes, time and commuting costs alongside longer journeys. Their trip definitions and measures differ, so their percentages should not be read as directly comparable.
Policy Relevance
The survey gives transport planners a clearer basis for distinguishing daily access from long-distance travel:
School access: Walking, cycling and buses account for most recorded student journeys. Route planning and the conditions along those routes matter alongside travel time.
Work access: Heavy two-wheeler use and higher urban commuting costs make both transport choice and affordability relevant when assessing workers’ journeys.
Bus and rail planning: Their large share of overnight travel makes service frequency and connections relevant to journeys undertaken for social and religious purposes, not only tourism.
National averages are a starting point. Decisions on services and infrastructure need to account for the rural–urban and state differences visible in the survey.
Follow the Full Press Note Here: National Household Travel Survey, July 2025–June 2026