The state of Gujarat has one of the most extensive and traffic intensive road network in the country. The total road length in Gujarat currently stands at about 74500 km. This can broadly be divided into a core and a non-core network. The core network comprises of the National Highways and around 6000 kms of State Highways, while the balance constitutes the Non-core State Highways, Major District Roads, Other District Roads and Village Roads.

The road density in the state stands at around 38 km per 100 sq km, and 146 km per lakh of population. These figures are broadly comparable to 43 km and 126 km for India. The state government has launched an ambitious 6000 km State Highway Development Program (SHDP) to address the core network’s need for up-gradation and maintenance. Arterial network to augment road connectivity of DFC and DMIC areas with Ports and other growth centres has been identified.

The national highway network of Gujarat has benefited from the Golden Quadrilateral and North South East West axis of the National Highway Development Program passing through the State. Further, the pioneering PPP Roads, expressways, six laning projects (under advanced phases of NHDP), prudent use of external funding and a relatively better maintenance regime has led to a relatively better quality national highway network in the state compared to many other parts of the country. The State has implemented several network improvement initiatives such as the World Bank funded roads, Pragati Path, Kisan Path and Vikas Path road development programs. Such programs have led to substantial improvement of several key stretches of State Highways, offering fairly sound ridership experiences.

A key challenge for the core network is to cater to the needs of emerging growth centres like industrial parks, ports, SEZs and SIRs, and urban centres which will define the Gujarat economic landscape. Moving forward, continuing to provide quality roads of adequate capacity will be critical for the state. This should be seen in the backdrop of facilitating transaction competitiveness. This can be ensured by providing a quality road network through output focussed delivery systems.

Gujarat is the first state in India to have a law governing Build Own and Transfer (BOT) transaction and such other arrangements along with private participation in infrastructure projects. Roads in the transport sector account for nearly 17.05% of the total planned investments amounting to Rs.39110 crores for the period up to 2020 of "Blue Print for Infrastructure in Gujarat – Vision 2020"prepared by GIDB.

Goals: Road Sector

• Ensuring maximum of 50% Volume to Capacity Ratio at Design Level of Service B , maintaining a high riding quality (International roughness index of not more than 4) and ensuring highest safety (The number of accidents directly attributable to civil engineering factors shall be reduced to zero).
• Maximizing the benefit from the DFC and DMIC through connectivity of ports/ industrial areas to cargo agglomeration and distribution points including removal of road bottlenecks to facilitate double/ triple stack container movements.
• Attempting to meet international standards in terms of road design, road side development, prevention of ribbon development and encroachment.
• Ensuring higher speed connectivity between all major urban, industrial, commercial, agricultural and rural centres including speedy cargo evacuation from Gujarat’s ports to its state boundary within 12 hours.
• Ensuring all weather connectivity to all villages of Gujarat including Sagarkhedu (coastal) and Vanbandhu (tribal) areas by strengthening District and Village Roads to facilitate inclusive growth.
• Construction of bypasses to towns with population of over 1 lakh and constructing Rail Over Bridges at railway crossings with traffic levels more than 1 lakh Train Vehicle Units (TVU).