system surfaced with concrete. The longitudinal expansion and lateral sway movement of the deck are taken care of by expansion and articulation joints. There are two main expansion joints, one at each interface between the suspended span and the cantilever arms and there are others at the towers and at the interface of the steel and concrete structures at both approach. There are total 8 articulation joints, 3 at each of the cantilever arms and 1 each in the suspended portion. These joints divide the bridge into segments with vertical pin connection between them to facilitate rotational movements of the deck. The bridge deck has longitudinal ruling gradient of 1 in 40 from either end, joined by a vertical curve of radius . The cross gradient of deck is 1 in 48 between kerbs. Traffic The bridge serves as the gateway to Kolkata, connecting it to the Howrah Station, which is one of the five intercity train terminus stations serving Howrah and Kolkata. As such, it carries the near entirety of the traffic to and from the station, taking its average daily traffic close to nearly 150,000 pedestrians and 100,000 vehicles. In 1946, a census of the daily traffic was taken, which counted 27,400 vehicles, 121,100 pedestrians and 2,997 cattle. The bulk of the vehicular traffic comes from buses and cars. Prior to 1993, the bridge also carried trams. Trams departed from the terminus at Howrah station towards Sealdah, Rajabazar, Shyambazar, High Court, Dalhousie Square, Park Circus, Ballygunge, Tollygunge etc. In 1993, tram service on the bridge was discontinued due to the increasing load on the structure. However, the bridge still continues to carry much more than the expected load. A 2007 report revealed that nearly 90,000 vehicles were plying on the bridge daily (15,000 of which were goods-carrying), though its load-bearing capacity is only 60,000. One of the main reasons for the overloading was that, although vehicles carrying up to 15 tonnes are allowed on the structure, vehicles with 12-18 wheels and carrying loads up to 25 tonnes often plied on it. From 31 May 2007 onwards, overloaded trucks were banned from crossing the bridge and were redirected to the Vidyasagar Setu instead. The road is flanked by footpaths wide, which are thronged with pedestrians. Maintenance The Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is vested with the maintenance of the bridge. The bridge has been subject to damage from vehicles due