Bengaluru: While the city’s expansion has forced town-planners scurrying back to the drawing board every other year, Bengaluru’s road network has remained almost static at 13,000km over the past decade, a period in which the number of vehicles has nearly doubled and the public transport fleet remained the same.Bengaluru roads are buckling under the weight of its own growth, pushing traffic to the crawl-mode across large swathes of the city.
Transport dept data shows that registered vehicles in Bengaluru shot up from 64.4 lakh in March 2015 to more than 1.2 crore by Dec 2025 – a staggering 90% jump. Around 1,500 new vehicles continue to be added every day, worsening an already strained traffic situation.With GST incentives kicking in, the number of new vehicles joining the already-busy roads is expected to rise further in this financial year. A foretaste of this scenario came from October with average 2,700 vehicles hitting roads in that month. In December 2025, the trend continued with 53,398 new vehicles being added — on average, 1722 a day, much more than the usual.Private vehicles dominate the surge. Of the total fleet, over 1.1 crore vehicles are privately owned, with two-wheelers and cars accounting for the lion’s share. Two-wheeler numbers doubled from 41.8 lakh to 84.6 lakh, while car registrations similarly climbed from 14.2 lakh to nearly 24.4 lakh during the decade under review.Officials and transport experts point to one core problem: Public transport has failed to keep pace with the city’s explosive growth. Bengaluru currently has just 96 km of operational Metro lines with 83 stations, while the city’s bus fleet stands unchanged at about 7,000 buses — far too less, almost diminutive, for a metropolis of its size, sprawl and growth potential. A transport dept official said: “With roads not being widened (within the constraints) and public transport that isn’t expanding fast enough, Bengaluru’s vehicle boom has turned its streets into daily bottlenecks, leaving commuters stuck in an ever-slowing urban grind.“Year Vehicle numbers (in lakh) 2015 (March 31)64.42016 70.12017 76.32018 82.72019 88.7 2020 94.72021 98.42022 1.02 crore 2023 1.1 crore 2024 1.172025 (Dec)1.23 (Numbers rounded off; source: Transport dept)
