“How long will it take?” is the first question on every freight enquiry. The honest answer depends on distance, on whether you book a whole truck or a share of one. This note turns those variables into benchmarks, using 142,270 road consignments that Safe & Secure Logistics (SSL) booked in FY2025-26 and recorded as delivered.

Transit by distance

Mode	Lane length	Delivered CNs	Median km	Median days	p75 days	p90 days	Effective km/day
FTL	0-49 km	18,280	7	1	1	2	n/a
FTL	50-249 km	12,072	177	1	2	5	177
FTL	250-499 km	22,958	286	1	2	4	286
FTL	500-999 km	14,520	619	2	3	6	310
FTL	1,000-1,499 km	7,477	1,341	4	6	11	335
FTL	1,500-1,999 km	7,852	1,640	6	9	20	273
FTL	2,000 km +	914	2,098	7	9	13	300
PTL	50-249 km	408	246	1	3	7	246
PTL	250-499 km	1,054	346	2	3	5	173
PTL	500-999 km	172	822	7	13	28	117
PTL	1,000-1,499 km	30,400	1,324	12	20	33	110
PTL	1,500-1,999 km	25,857	1,627	11	19	33	148

Chart 1 Median transit days by lane length

FTL · Median days
PTL · Median days

Show the data table (13 rows)

Mode	Km band	Median km	Median days
FTL	0-49	7	1
FTL	50-249	177	1
FTL	250-499	286	1
FTL	500-999	619	2
FTL	1000-1499	1,341	4
FTL	1500-1999	1,640	6
FTL	2000+	2,098	7
PTL	0-49	35	2
PTL	50-249	246	1
PTL	250-499	346	2
PTL	500-999	822	7
PTL	1000-1499	1,324	12
PTL	1500-1999	1,627	11

Source: SSL Research Desk, Safe & Secure Logistics operating data. Download CSV (13 rows)

Finding 1: a truck does about 300 km a day; a parcel does about 130

The FTL rows give a clean rule of thumb. Once lanes pass 500 km, door-to-door transit settles at about 300 km per calendar day. That covers loading, driving, rest stops, border and toll queues, and unloading. It sits well below the 500 km/day a truck can drive on a good highway day, and it is the right planning number for Indian road freight.

Part-truckload moves at less than half that speed on long lanes. It needs a pickup, a first-mile hub, consolidation until a line-haul truck is full, a destination hub and a last-mile delivery. Each touch adds a day or more. On 1,000-1,999 km lanes the median PTL consignment took 11-12 days. At the 90th percentile it took 33 days, which in part reflects parcels waiting at a destination godown for the consignee to collect them.

Share of PTL consignments delivered within:

Lane length	2 days	4 days	7 days	Over 10 days
0-49 km	53.0%	77.0%	86.1%	10.1%
50-249 km	68.1%	86.8%	90.9%	5.6%
250-499 km	66.2%	88.0%	96.2%	1.6%
500-999 km	13.4%	32.0%	52.9%	32.0%
1,000-1,499 km	0.2%	4.6%	25.6%	55.7%
1,500-1,999 km	0.0%	1.3%	24.5%	53.6%

The break sits at about 500 km. Below it, PTL behaves like a next-day or two-day service. Above it, PTL transit is set by consolidation cycles, not by distance.

Chart 2 Part-load delivery speed by lane length

Show the data table (6 rows)

Km band	Within 2d %	Within 4d %	Within 7d %	Over 10d %
0-49	53	77	86.1	10.1
50-249	68.1	86.8	90.9	5.6
250-499	66.2	88	96.2	1.6
500-999	13.4	32	52.9	32
1000-1499	0.2	4.6	25.6	55.7
1500-1999	0	1.3	24.5	53.6

Source: SSL Research Desk, Safe & Secure Logistics operating data. Download CSV (6 rows)

Busiest pincode-to-pincode pairs (PTL)

Pickup pincode	Delivery pincode	Lane	Est. km	Delivered CNs	Median days	p90 days	Median kg
410501	226001	Pune → Lucknow	1,411	3,752	10	30	200
121003	831007	Faridabad → Jamshedpur	1,295	3,187	12	33	191
410501	831001	Pune → Jamshedpur (Jugsalai)	1,627	2,987	9	32	258
410501	832108	Pune → Jamshedpur area	1,627	2,482	9	32	275
412216	831001	Pune → Jamshedpur (Jugsalai)	1,627	1,794	13	27	380
121102	831007	Faridabad → Jamshedpur	1,295	1,659	14	43	191
141003	831010	Ludhiana → Jamshedpur	1,622	1,027	15	43	280
396191	831001	Vapi → Jamshedpur (Jugsalai)	1,665	526	10	26	285
600001	560001	Chennai → Bangalore	346	439	1	3	1,500
400003	831001	Mumbai → Jamshedpur (Jugsalai)	1,715	353	9	15	225

Thirty pairs with at least 100 delivered consignments each are in the chart data. The same distance can carry very different service: Faridabad → Jamshedpur lanes run at a p90 of 33-43 days, while Mumbai → Jugsalai, at 1,715 km, runs at a p90 of 15 days. Lane-level service, not distance, is what a shipper should ask a carrier to prove.

Chart 3 Busiest pincode pairs: transit and cost

The table (30 rows)

Pickup pincode	Delivery pincode	Origin city	Destination city	Origin state	Destination state	Road km est	Delivered consignments	Median days	P90 days	Median kg
410501	226001	Pune	Lucknow	MAHARASHTRA	UTTAR PRADESH	1,411	3,752	10	30	200
121003	831007	Faridabad	Jamshedpur	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,295	3,187	12	33	191
410501	831001	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	2,987	9	32	258
410501	832108	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	2,482	9	32	275
412216	831001	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	1,794	13	27	380
412216	832108	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	1,737	11	20	412
121102	831007	Faridabad	Jamshedpur	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,295	1,659	14	43	191
121004	831004	Faridabad	Jamshedpur	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,293	1,196	14	44	95
410501	832109	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	1,131	14	33	238
412216	226001	Pune	Lucknow	MAHARASHTRA	UTTAR PRADESH	1,411	1,061	10	24	200
141003	831010	Ludhiana	Jamshedpur	PUNJAB	JHARKHAND	1,622	1,027	15	43	280
121004	831010	Faridabad	Jamshedpur	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,293	853	11	35	920
411001	831001	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	840	9	24	420
411001	832109	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	766	19	40	258
141003	831006	Ludhiana	Jugsalai	PUNJAB	JHARKHAND	1,624	763	10	38	332
121004	832109	Faridabad	Jugsalai	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,295	712	7	11	150
121004	831007	Faridabad	Jamshedpur	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,293	558	14	34	140
396191	831001	Vapi	Jugsalai	GUJARAT	JHARKHAND	1,665	526	10	26	285
600001	560001	Chennai	Bangalore	TAMIL NADU	KARNATAKA	346	439	1	3	1,500
226019	121105	Lucknow	Palwal	UTTAR PRADESH	HARYANA	467	361	2	5	600
400003	831001	Mumbai	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,715	353	9	15	225
410203	831001	Bhiwandi	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,685	347	25	49	440
121004	831007	Faridabad	Jugsalai	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,295	340	13	42	166
411001	226001	Pune	Lucknow	MAHARASHTRA	UTTAR PRADESH	1,411	337	11	33	221
121004	831010	Faridabad	Jugsalai	HARYANA	JHARKHAND	1,295	331	14	41	250
410501	831006	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	302	32	52	309
410506	226001	Pune	Lucknow	MAHARASHTRA	UTTAR PRADESH	1,411	281	16	26	80
141003	832109	Ludhiana	Jugsalai	PUNJAB	JHARKHAND	1,624	280	7	11	1,318
410203	832108	Pune	Jugsalai	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,627	280	16	40	600
410203	831001	Bhiwandi	Jamshedpur	MAHARASHTRA	JHARKHAND	1,685	258	23	47	750

Source: SSL Research Desk, Safe & Secure Logistics operating data. Download CSV (30 rows)

What this means

Planning rule: for FTL, allow 1 day per 300 km plus a day. For PTL over 500 km, plan on about 2 weeks and ask for the lane’s p90, not its median.
For analysts: India’s PTL speed problem is a hub and consolidation problem, not a highway problem. Trucks already move at about 300 km/day. Parcels do not.

Quotable findings

Free to quote with attribution to Safe & Secure Logistics (SSL Research Desk).

Full-truckload road freight in India covered about 300 km per calendar day door to door on lanes over 500 km in FY2025-26, according to 142,270 delivered consignments analysed by the Safe & Secure Logistics Research Desk.
Part-truckload consignments on Indian road lanes of 1,000-1,999 km took a median 11-12 days in FY2025-26, and only about 25% arrived within a week (Safe & Secure Logistics, 2026).

Methodology and limitations

Data

SSL consignment register FY2025-26: 142,270 consignments with status DELIVERED, a recorded delivery date within 60 days of booking and a resolved lane distance (84,073 FTL, 58,193 PTL); 128,200 of them have both pickup and delivery pincodes. Chart data: data/pincode-to-pincode-transit-distance-cost.json

Method

Transit = recorded delivery date minus booking date, in calendar days. Distance = booking-branch city to destination city, great-circle km × 1.19. Pincode pairs use the 6-digit pickup and delivery pincodes, PTL only, with at least 100 delivered CNs.

Limitations

Only 31% of consignments have a recorded delivery date, and the delivered PTL sample is concentrated on industrial lanes into Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, so it is not a random sample of all parcels. The recorded delivery date may include time waiting at a destination godown for consignee collection, which inflates the long tail (p90). Distance is estimated from city centroids, not routed.

Full data-quality notes

Sample. Of 513,216 consignments (de-duplicated), 158,348 have status DELIVERED with a delivery date. 3,783 of those had transit over 60 days and are excluded as probable late data entry, and a few more lack a resolvable city. That leaves 142,270. PTL delivery-date capture is far lower than FTL, and it is concentrated on engineering-parcel lanes into Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
Transit. Calendar days from booking to the recorded delivery date. It includes weekends, festival closures and godown dwell before collection.
Distance. City-level (booking branch to destination), not true pincode-to-pincode road distance. Pincodes are used to define pairs, not to measure distance.
No shipper, consignee, vehicle or driver information is used. Pincodes are published only as area codes for pairs with at least 100 consignments.

Full SQL: available to researchers on request. Chart data: data/pincode-to-pincode-transit-distance-cost.json.

Privacy: no customer, consignor, consignee, supplier, broker, driver or vehicle is identified. Places are city-level.

Download the data

Licence: free to quote and chart with attribution to Safe & Secure Logistics (SSL Research Desk).

How to cite

APA: SSL Research Desk. (2026, September). Pincode-to-pincode transit in India: How many days distance really takes (Research note). Safe & Secure Logistics. https://safeandsecure.in/research/pincode-to-pincode-transit-distance-cost/

Plain: Source: Safe & Secure Logistics (SSL Research Desk), transit by distance, 142,270 delivered road consignments, FY2025-26.