By: Express News ServicePune | Updated: December 14, 2025 03:22 PM IST 3 min readHighway police officers said at least six such blocks were taken for the Pune-Mumbai Expressway. (Express Photo)Heavy weekend commuter traffic between Pune and Mumbai, further intensified by the festive season and a surge of tourists heading to hill stations, led to severe congestion in the ghat section of the Pune–Mumbai Expressway Saturday. The situation compelled the highway police to implement half a dozen traffic breaks to ease the jam.State highway police officers said the congestion also spilled over onto the old Pune–Mumbai highway and several bypass roads within Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad. Other highways connecting Pune to Satara, Nashik, Solapur, and Ahilyanagar also witnessed a weekend traffic surge, resulting in multiple traffic snarls.Highway police said the ghat section was the primary choke point for both the Expressway and the Old Highway, as a major surge in vehicles plying between the two metros and to hill stations was reported. Traffic movement slowed significantly when multiple heavy vehicles broke down on gradients in the ghat stretch, partially blocking the lanes and disrupting the flow.The resulting bottlenecks caused cascading delays, forcing repeated traffic regulation measures and substantially increasing travel time for commuters.Vikrant Deshmukh, Superintendent of Police for Pune Division of the highway police, said, “The sharp increase in traffic volume compelled us to implement multiple traffic breaks. Under this controlled measure, vehicles on the less-congested corridor are briefly halted at a designated point. This allows traffic from the severely affected corridor to move on both carriageways, effectively making all six lanes available to clear the backlog. Once congestion eases, normal traffic movement is restored by converging the traffic to its original corridor. The measure helps ease bottlenecks and prevent further blockages.”Highway police officers said at least six such blocks were taken for the Pune-Mumbai Expressway.Another officer from the highway police said, “Similar issues were observed on other highways connecting Pune to Satara, Nashik, Solapur, and Ahilyanagar, which witnessed the weekend traffic surge, resulting in multiple traffic snarls. These were further exacerbated by local issues on these highways, including ongoing construction on the Nashik highway and heavy-vehicle breakdowns on other highways. This surge further spilt over to Katraj Dehu Road bypass in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, with traffic and Wakad and Hinjewadi, and is getting affected the most, resulting in higher travel times.”Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:pune