CLASSIC CHENNAI

Chennai has a well developed transport infrastructure.

Roads.
For the proposed elevated expressways, see Chennai Elevated Expressways

Chennai's economic development has been closely tied to its port and transport infrastructure.

The city and metropolitan area are served by major arterial roads that run either in an east-west or north-south direction . Anna Salai — or Mount Road as it is more popularly called — is the city's most famous road.

It traverses most of central and south Chennai and leads on to the Grand Southern Trunk Road (National Highway 45) to Thiruchirapalli.
The road runs in a north-east to south-west direction. Other arterials include Kamaraj Salai (north-south), Poonamalee High Road (east-west), Radhakrishnan Salai (east-west), and Sardar Patel Road (east-west).


Chennai is also served by the Inner Ring Road that circled the metropolitan area when it was built. The proposed Outer Ring Road will further improve the traffic flow around the city. In addition, the recently constructed Chennai byepass road, that connects NH 45 to NH-4, and in future, NH-5 has allowed freight traffic to byepass part of the city, and provides a convenient alternative to the Inner Ring Road. Most of the arterial roads lead to the National Highways and State Highways.



Five major National Highways radiate outward from Chennai:

* Erukancheri High Road to the northwest, becoming National Highway 5 to Kolkata;
* Poonamallee High Road (Periyar Salai) to the west, becoming National Highway 4 to Mumbai(via Bangalore and Pune);
* Mount Road (Anna Salai) to the south-west, becoming National Highway 45 to Tiruchirapalli and the interior of Tamil Nadu;
* Madras-Tiruvallur High Road (MTH Road), built parallel to NH 4 to the west, leading to Tiruvallur;
* Beach Road to the south along the coast, becoming East Coast Road to Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry and beyond.

Public Transport:

The Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) foundation stone laid by Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi in 1999 and was opened in 2001 in Koyambedu in western Chennai by the then Chief Minister Ms. J. Jayalalitha. The CMBT is the largest bus station in Asia, and serves as the terminus for all intercity buses from Chennai. The CMBT is located on the Inner Ring Road, replacing the older terminus on the Esplanade in the city centre. State transport and private bus services to all major cities and towns in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring states start from here.





Most of Chennai's intra-city transport requirements are met by an extensive public transport system. The bus service, which is run by the government-owned Metropolitan Transport Corporation covers the city and its suburbs. Bus services are generally considered efficient, but buses on some routes can get very crowded at times. The bus service, which plies about 3084 buses on 626 routes, moves an estimated 4.03 million passengers each day.

*chennai is the only city to have govt buses.no private buses can be seen*

AC BUSES:

mtc also introduced ac buses in the city with many facilities.



The buses have many passenger friendly features including

- Tilting the bus on left or right side and increasing the height of the bus according to the requirements. (volvos need this to run on our roads :( )

- The suspension would also ensure jerk-free travel for commuters

- Physically-challenged and elders can board the buses with their wheel chairs.

- provision for wheel chairs to be fastened with the seats.

- LED scrolling boards will also be in place in the front, rear and sides of the vehicle for route information.

- Automatic doors in the front and rear with sensors, provision for laptop connection and mobile phone charger, channel music system and public announcement (PA) system to give information to passengers will be the other attractions

In addition to the bus service, private metered call taxis and fixed-rate tourist taxis are available at all entry points to the city like airport, mofussil bus terminus and central railway station.

Metered/unmetered autos ply across the city and are extensively used. In the case of autos though, drivers often demand flat rates especially for short distances(say 1-2 km) and certainly need some bargaining.

RAILWAY NETWORK:
in addition to the road,chennai has a complex rail network.
Suburban System

The Chennai suburban railway system can be broken down into five sections:

* Chennai Central — Tiruvallur — Arakkonam — Tiruttani
* Chennai Central — Ennore — Gummidipoondi — Sullurpet
* Chennai Beach — Tambaram — Chengalpattu — Kanchipuram — Tirumalpur
* Chennai Beach — Royapuram — Washermanpet — Korukkupet — Ennore — Gummidipoondi
* Chennai Beach — Royapuram — Washermanpet — Perambur — Arakkonam


The system uses broad gauge. The section from Washermanpet to Beach handles predominantly freight traffic from Chennai Port, and is not geared well to serve passengers.

MRTS System

* Chennai Beach — Velachery
* Velachery — St. Thomas Mount (under construction)
* Thiruvanmiyur — Mamallapuram (proposed)

The MRTS system is planned to meet with the Tambaram branch of the existing suburban network at St. Thomas Mount. The plan envisages the MRTS line to proceed north from St. Thomas Mount, forming a ring around the city and ending at the northbound Central-Gummidipoondi line.

Smart Card:

The Smart Card looks similar to a debit card, issued by the suburban railway at ticket counters for Rs.100 currently. This Rs.100 includes Rs.50 refundable deposit, and Rs.50 travel value. The travel value can be used to purchase platform and travel tickets for the Chennai suburban trains. The smart card is valid for 6 months from the date of purchase and the extra amounts of travel value can be recharged whenever needed. It is found that very few people are using this smart card.

Smart Card is very beneficial in terms of avoiding standing in long queues saving precious time, and also keeping track of the money spending on the trains travel. The touch screen ticket vending kiosks are provided in many stations, for using the smart card services. The kiosk has a multilanguage interface, featuring Tamil, English and Hindi. The user has to place the smart card, select destination zone, destination station, number of adults, number of children, one way or return ticket and via stations. The ticket is printed for the user.

Main Railway Terminal Stations:

There are two main railway terminals, the Chennai Central station, which is the city's largest railway station with trains to major cities and towns in India, and Chennai Egmore, with trains to cities and towns within Tamil Nadu.

chennai central:

Chennai Central, formerly known as Madras Central is the main railway terminus in Chennai. It is home to the Southern Railways and the most important rail hub in South India. Trains from here connect the city to other states of India, while trains to other parts of Tamil Nadu (excluding Tiruchirapalli, Madurai and Tirunelveli) are catered to by the Chennai Egmore station. Chennai Central is the main hub for the Chennai suburban railway. The building of the railway station, one of the landmarks of Chennai, was designed by the architect Henry Irwin.



Chennai Central serves as a symbolic landmark for people in South India as this served as the main gateway for all people who travelled to South India during British times. Chennai Central has been greatly instrumental in earning Chennai the famous sobriquet "Gateway of the South"


chennai egmore:

Chennai Egmore is a railway station in Egmore, Chennai, South India. The station acts as the arrival and departure point for trains connecting Chennai and southern, central Tamil Nadu and Kerala.This is one of the two main railway terminals in the city along with Chennai Central, which serves the north and west bound trains from the city.



water transport:

chennai port:
Chennai Port is the second largest port of India, behind the Mumbai Port. It is over 125 years old. This was a major travel port before becoming a major container port. It is a substantial reason for the economic growth of Tamil Nadu, especially for the manufacturing boom in South India. Its container traffic crossed 1 million TEUs for the first time in 2008. Though much smaller than ports such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, it is expanding in the coming years.



AIRWAYS:

Chennai International Airport

Chennai International Airportis located in Meenambakkam, 7 km (4.3 mi) south of Chennai, India. It is the third largest international gateway into the country and the third busiest airport in India after Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, and the main air hub for South India, handling around 12 million passengers in 2007 and serving more than 50 different airlines. It is also a hub for Jet Airways, Kingfisher Red, Air India and Paramount Airways. It is also an important cargo terminus for the country, after
Mumbai.



Facts and Figures:

Currently, Chennai airport handles about 25 aircraft movements every hour, which will be saturated by the year 2014-15. However, peak hour traffic handling capability will be exhausted much earlier than that. Anna International Terminal handled 3,410,253 passengers in 2007-08 and has the capacity of handling 3M passengers annually, Already it has surpassed the passenger handling capacity. Similarly, Kamaraj Domestic Terminal, which handled 7,249,501 passengers in 2007-08, has the capacity to handle 6 million passengers annually. Here again the terminal demand far exceeds the capacity. In all Chennai airport handled a capacity of 10,659,754 passengers in 2007 - 08. The airport handled cargo of a total of 270,608 tonnes in 2007 - 08.