A school commute along parts of east Bengaluru has become almost as long as the school day itself. A mobility study covering 42 schools along the Varthur-Gunjur-Dommasandra corridor found that children are now spending an average of 112 minutes a day in school buses. Over a 200-day academic year, that means about 374 hours, or roughly 53 seven-hour school days, spent on the road.
The deterioration has been rapid. Average daily bus travel time on the corridor was 92 minutes in 2024-25. It is now 112 minutes, an increase of about 22 percent in two academic years. Afternoon journeys have become particularly slow, rising from an average 53 minutes to around 65 minutes.
This is not a small sample from one school. The corridor serves 42 schools, more than 1,000 buses and over 40,000 students and other school-transport users. GPS data from 61 school buses showed average afternoon speeds of just 9.2kmph. On the slowest routes, buses crawled at 6.4kmph, only slightly faster than walking pace.
A 4km Journey Has Taken 2.5 Hours
The averages hide how severe the worst days can be. In September, some school buses took as much as 2.5 hours to cover around 4km on the Varthur-Gunjur stretch. Several children were travelling during their mid-term examinations, and schools had to make allowances for students who arrived late because their buses were stuck in traffic.
The study found that about 60 percent of school-bus trips now miss their scheduled arrival time. Around 15 percent run at least 30 minutes late. Thursdays are the worst, with some average journeys stretching to 76 minutes. For families, this means the morning pickup has to move earlier while the return home becomes less predictable.
The effect is not confined to inconvenience. A child spending nearly two hours travelling every school day loses time that would otherwise go to sleep, homework, sport, meals or simply being at home. That is why the 53-day calculation is useful: it converts an everyday traffic delay into the amount of a child’s year being consumed by the commute.
The Roads Have Not Kept Up With The Neighbourhood
The Varthur-Gunjur-Dommasandra belt has seen rapid growth in apartments, schools, offices and commercial activity, but road capacity has not expanded at the same pace. The corridor combines school traffic with office commuters, construction vehicles, local traffic and heavy goods vehicles, creating multiple bottlenecks at the same time.
Five points have been identified as particularly difficult: Dommasandra Circle, Gunjur, Varthur Kodi, the Vibgyor Road-Kundalahalli stretch and Gran Carmen. Poor road surfaces, waterlogging, construction work and diversions add to the problem. When one junction slows down, the congestion can spread across the corridor rather than remain a single local jam.
A Varthur elevated corridor was planned years ago, but the project has faced delays linked to land acquisition, right-of-way issues, utility shifting and execution. The latest target is December 2026 for completion. Until that work is finished, schools have limited ability to fix the problem on their own.
Schools Have Already Tried The Obvious Fixes
Schools have changed bus routes, used different bus sizes, encouraged shared transport and used GPS data to adjust dispatch timings. At one school, about 80 percent of the community already uses school transport, with average bus occupancy of 69 percent. That means simply asking more parents to put children on buses is unlikely to solve the corridor’s capacity problem.
Authorities have started restricting heavy goods vehicles during school commuting hours and carrying out road repairs at some choke points. Traffic improved when enforcement was stronger, but narrow stretches and unfinished work remain.