Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Street Experiences (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/)

-   -   Pros & Cons of Outer Ring Roads (Hyderabad) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/233926-pros-cons-outer-ring-roads-hyderabad.html)

Hyderabad's Outer Ring Road (ORR) -
It's a 158 KM ring road expressway encircling the city opened in 2012.

Advantages -

* Is literally through out the city (Definitely a "Ring" road)
* Connects to the Hyderabad International Airport
* Acts as a by-pass road
* 8 Lane
* Designed for speeds of 120 KMPH
* Has thick plants/bushes almost throughout the ORR on the median which do a real good job in blocking on coming traffic lights in the nights
* Has Fastag on all entrances/exits
* Excellent radial road connectivity (Into the city)
* Excellent connectivity to the National highways (The exits are designed very well to get onto the major highways eg: Mumbai, Vijayawada, Warangal, Bangalore)
* Minimum speed limit of 80 KMPH on the first and second lane
* Minimum speed limit of 60 KMPH on the third and fourth lane
* 50% off for 24 hour return trip
* Service roads on both sides of the ORR, throughout the ORR with underpasses at appropriate distances
* No speedbreakers, roads are 95% of the time well maintained with a very few bad patches
* Exits are properly marked and maintained well.
* Well barricaded to ensure no animal/human crossings. Also, the ORR is mostly at an elevation.

Disadvantages -

* Speed has been limited to 100 KMPH due to the number of accidents
* Toll rates (Is currently at Approximately 2 rupees per KM)
* Subjectively longer for certain areas of the city to access the ORR (Eg: It's a KM ride for Gachibowli commuters to get onto the ORR and it's around 15 KMS for Uppal commuters to get onto the ORR)
* Service roads have a lot of speed breakers.
* Many "slow" drivers on the first lane
* Occasional accidents in the night taking lives
* Cops with speed guns in multiple places issuing e-challans for about 1300 rs (You won't know you have been issued a challan untill you check the echallan site or have the correct phone number linked to the car regn number in the RTA)
* Missing your exit might set you off by 10 to 30 kms
* Even though it's fenced properly; at few places, few idiots have broken the fence, to cross the road/ask for lifts. Few dogs too started coming onto the ORR.
* No washrooms/toilet breaks can be taken. Legally, you can only stop on ORR only in case of a breakdown/emergency.

Latest news -

Currently, as per my opinion, ORR has the right amount of traffic and serves well to the city folks and might do so for the next 5 to 10 years. Taking into picture of the expanding city and also to have more regional connectivity, the govt has announced the "Regional ring road" which will be a 6 lane, 330 KM long road which will be a ring outside the exisitng ORR.

Few pictures of the ORR -

The six lanes with the service roads. This is 158 KMS around the Hyderabad city. :loveit


A picture taken of my car on the service road. (Look at the ORR's height. This is how it is at most of the places. It also helps prevent animals/humans to get on top of the ORR)


Service Road -


One of the Underpass -


A nice view of the ORR from a nearby hilll - (My friend in the picture)


Note: Stopping on the ORR is dangerous. Request not to post pictures where you are stopping on the ORR/encourage people to stop on the ORR to click pictures.

Last year in December, we went for a drive to do a complete round of the entire 150+ km ring road. Entered from the airport entrance and exited from the airport exit. We were expecting a 3 figure toll to be charged. To our suprise we got a message saying that INR 40.00 have been deducted from the Paytm Fastag balance! rl:

Not sure whether it was a glitch in their system or was it because we entered and exited from the same point within a couple of hours. I was charged more than this in previous instances where we had made partial use of the ring road.

Ring roads if planned, designed and implemented well will have a lot more advantages than the disadvantages. That said, Hyderabad's Outer Ring Road is perhaps the best example for anyone to understand how Ring Roads should ideally be.

3 years back, I had shared how strict policing has helped every motorist stick their speed limits and drive peacefully end to end.

And regarding too many speed breakers on the service road, I believe in the absence of them, you can imagine what happens when a tractor or a 2 wheeler simply pops out of this underpass while there is a water tanker driven on the service road at breakneck speeds. Apart from these, there are speed breakers around small villages too but since these are all on service road, we should complain less.

To be very honest, the toll charges justify the amount paid unlike some of the half baked projects like Bangalore's famed NICE Road (Still not a ring road) that charges 4 INR per Km and yet has only 2 lanes and on a normal day (Pre-Covid times) you can see cars scrambling for space to overtake dangerously from the shoulders. The vigilance is equally bad and so are the basic facilities like availability of cranes and ambulances during an accident (had a hard time for a friend once).

Next one on my list is the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Western Peripheral Expressway of the NCR Region which brilliantly helps one escape the madness in the NCR region and crisscross to the opposite side.

One of the best roads that have ever come to Hyderabad. Even though far from access from different residential locations in the city, peace of mind and continuous cruising at 100 kmph is bliss. :) The nearest ORR Extry/Exit point i.e. Exit-3 is around 14 kms from my home but being the NH-44, it is not that crowded so reaching the ORR is pretty easy and fast.

I have been using the ORR from as early as November 2013 (Exit-6 [Medhcal] to Exit-3 [Mumbai]) which was around 30 kms distance each way. Used this to go to work which I could manage in 1 hour from home to office whereas from the city it used to take 1 hr 35-40 minutes minimum. For a long time, the speed limit was 120kmph and the stretch that I used was hardly regulated by traffic police so a lot of high-speed driving used to happen. Exit-6 (Medchal) was the last point as the stretch connecting it to Exit-7 (Shamirpet) took a little longer for completion hence the full circle of 158 kms was delayed. Toll charges from Exit-6 to Exit-3 used to be ₹40 in the initial days and is currently at ₹50.

So far since its inception, I have done 4 full rounds on my Creta and charged ₹0 on my Fastag. :D Keep the speeds at 90kmph and relax. It would have been even better had my car had cruise control, switch it ON and hold at 95kmph and enjoy. No challans and good FE too.

Clicked in 2014 - car parked near the edge of the road and I was standing near the divider, 0 traffic at that time


Clicked in 2016 - This the Medchal to Shamirpet road that was closed since the work hadn't been completed. I could climb the road and click the picture


Clicked in 2018 - Creta on the ORR en route work


Clicked in 2020 - Service road, lot's of speed breakers and crossing, least preferred. Had clicked this picture when the road was a near-empty and slight drizzle with lush greenery with a long stretch of straight road.


The current situation is like there are 2-3 policemen sitting on the divider with the speed camera issuing challan's if found travelling over 104 kmph (in the stretch Exit 6 to Exit-3). From airport to Gachibowli stretch has a speed limit of 80kmph. Most major entry/exit points have 4-5 lanes with Fastag as payment mode and 1 lane as cash. There are a couple of digital signboards displaying messages like:

• "Stay Married; Divorce Speed".
• Speed limits for each lane on the road.

The ORR management has fixed speed camera's behind these digital signboards that click pictures and issue challan's based on the calculation of speed = Distance/Time. Not many are aware as the camera is mounted on the back of the board and in the direction of travel so all images clicked are of the rear of the car's number plate.

I have travelled on the Yamuna Expressway once and that so far has been the best roads travelled ever after the Hyderabad ORR.

Hyderabad ORR is the textbook example of how city bypasses should be built. The decision to make it an 8-lane was a massive foresight. The ORR was one of the reasons I switched to the Hyderabad route for my Madras-Shirdi runs.

Last time I drove through the city onto NH9 from Begumpet, it took about 2 hours. Am never doing that mistake again.

Like I said above, I do 1300 km non-stop runs. I set cruise to 100 as soon as I enter ORR and barely use RES 1-2 times for the 78 km drive. And it takes about an hour give or take. 75-80 km an hour is great average on a highway run which I'll take it anyday.

Please try the nice NICE road, which charges 4 Rs/km for that insult of a 4-lane.
--
The disadvantage (if any) are:

1. Signages at the entry point to either directions. These are so easy to miss. So one has to be prepared to take the exit immediately after paying the toll.
2. The roads leading up to the ORR. Especially NH9 on either side is a mess. Pangthangi-ORR entry has been in half broken condition my last 3 drives. Half done constructions on Patancheru to Sangareddy

Fully agree. I understood the advantage while I was staying in "Karadi bypass", Pune, the road which connects Solapur road with Ahmednagar road.

This single road used to serve (Don't know current status) both city and also intra city connectivity so had always heavy traffic, even during odd hours of night / early morning.

Even SP ring road in Ahmedabad can't be considered very well planned and it is becoming city road only but still it's difficult to imagine the situation of many city roads if It wasn't built.

The Hyderabad ORR is one of best planned ring roads and has been planned keeping future growth in mind. Road has been maintained well over the years. While some complain that the toll rates are high (initially the rates were very lucrative!), I would say it is well worth it and almost similar to the NHAI rates.

As DBHPian Parag and Narayanan mentioned earlier, it is leagues better and cheaper than the Bangalore NICE road. Unlike NICE, they have adopted Fastag since a long time. Even the placement of hoardings and signages are lot better on the Hyderabad ORR.

Certain entry/exits are identified as priority ones. One pays a premium toll rate if they use this entry or exit even if distance covered is the same. For example, entry/exit towards RGIA vs. one opening to Bangalore highway, former is a premium one. Entry/exit at Gachibowli also charges a premium vs. the Financial district exit.

The speed limits was a necessity and a welcome change. Those limits, wide open roads and sparse traffic ensure one gets insane FE numbers. The drive is very peaceful (and equally boring!).

That said, I fear the service roads and limited toll booths at exits are increasingly becoming bottle necks on this otherwise great infrastructure.

Totally agree with you, the drive has gotten extremely boring and if you're one that uses the ORR on a daily basis, it borders on dangerous as I've heard many horror stories of drivers dozing off behind the wheel for short instances.

As much as I like the road, it is very boring to drive with very sparse traffic after crossing the airport exit. Cruise control really helps make it better. I think the police can experiment with enforcing better driving discipline and subsequently increase speed limits.

We have been fined for 101 and 104 kmph. Do they really have a 0% margin of error?

Take the Nanakramguda/Gachibowli entry, cover the entire loop and exit at Kokapet toll plaza or vice versa; 10 rupees for 160 kilometers.

There are at least 5 speeding cameras on the entire stretch currently. They are on the divider and for some reason the cops usually don’t change their locations although the speeding cameras are portable ones.
- One of them is between Rajendra Nagar Toll plaza exit and entry( approximate location 17.3102739, 78.3769634)
- The other one is near exit 15 ( approximate location 17.2031603, 78.4120879)

Disadvantages:
- Absolutely no lane manners. Only truck drivers stick to their lanes and follow speed limit. People go really slow in the first and second lane ( far below the speed limits and force others to overtake from the left ) or drive like maniacs.
- There are usually no signs for any road work in progress. They suddenly shut off the rightmost lane on blinded curves. I have seen people hitting the cones many times or they swerve sharply which can turn things ugly.

If you need a calming drive, this is the road to hit. The route has a relaxing effect minutes after you cross the every toll, and I've did the full circle a few times (a few sections were under construction though).

Apart from the automated speed checks, there will invariably be a DUI check at every entry and exit points :thumbs up
You missed adding "No two or three wheelers allowed in the ORR" - that adds to the calming drive.

There are a few outstation vehicles that don't adhere to speed limits, though. Gotta be careful with them.

I think apart from missing a right exit which will lead to an additional of 10 to 20 kms drive, I don't see any specific disadvantages with the ORR. Slow drivers in the fast lane, speed being reduced due to accidents, toll gates, 50% rebate for same day return journeys are something every road experiences. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages which are common to all highways/expressways. In fact after someone drives on the ORR, they will know how many rules are there to drive on highways. It discourages stopping on the expressway, has speed limits, lane manners for vehicle type and speeds etc.

Wow looks like a fantastically planned road! Hope some sense prevails in the government of Karnataka too have an expressway like this around Bangalore!

The so called ring road commissioned in early 2000s in Bangalore is just another congested road now. The only expressway we have is the NICe road which goes around 40-50% of the city from Hosur road to Tumkur road. Roads like the Hyderabad Highway/ Old madras road do not have such connectivity to bypass the City.

Also the Nice road is operated by a private party and is bound by its own rules and regulations! It already feels congested with its 4 lane roads. This project was actually commissioned to connect Mysore and the road to Mysore is stuck in legal hurdles between the govt and the private party. A real shame.

Now that the Mysore highway is being expanded to a six lane Highway this road to Mysore will be defunct with the private party holding ransom all the lands he acquired along the project

Hyderabad has shown the way as to how proper planning and execution can make lives of people much better.

Thanks for sharing ☺️

Though I do not have lot of experience on several ORRs in India. But when I drove my Tiago to Hyderabad to visit my cousin in May-2018 it was a very nice feeling. Also I loved since it was raining in the afternoon and the road was never ending. Incidentally this was my first and last visit to the City but the planning of ORR looked good compared to our Bangalore. Also the exit ramps had proper marking and alerted early too.

What I really loved was that it literally bisected the city and covered end to end. This actually hooked me and I later googled and read in Wikipedia to understand the entire map.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_...oad,_Hyderabad