[saleem_k]

I'm a Hyderabadi but doesn't matter when you drive on the ORR coz if I wasn't one, I still would love the drive. The ease with which one can go to different areas of Hyderabad, albeit taking a longer route but a less-crowded one, is THE major advantage of commuting on ORR. I live in Financial district and it's a great commute to key places like the airport, to the B'lore highway, to Vijayawada highway, to the Mumbai highway and to Nagpur highway, once I get on the ORR. My outstation travels have become simpler and I save a lot of time once I get on the ORR and exit it, I've already made significant progress.

Kudos to Chandrababu Naidu who envisioned this project way back in the early 2000s when we was the CM. Hitech City is also his idea. Thankfully the subsequent governments furthered the development both in the city and of the ORR. From 2017-2019, I was using the ORR atleast thrice a week to commute to my office (150kms roundtrip) and I must have spent nearly 30k of kilometers on this stretch out of the nearly 94k on my car's odo.

One funny thing about ORR are police with traffic guns sitting in between the bushes, perfectly camouflaged. I've gotten many pictures of mine (mostly my car) clicked and paid for it. :-)

One not so great thing is the many accidents that happened primarily coz of driver errors and lorries parked to the left without any hazard lights and some prominent personalities lost their children to illegal racing on the ORR. Just about 2-3 months ago the entire ORR was lit up so now there are no dark areas on the entire stretch.

[Yieldway17]

I look at Chennai ORR and its poor road design choices, construction, usage and maintenance and get envy of Hyderabad ORR every single time. What a beautiful asset to the Hyderabad people. It’s a proper expressway instead of whatever the Chennai ORRs designers came up with.

For example, Chennai ORR even though access controlled, uses single lane service lanes as entry and exits. The entry and exit is at such a tight angle it very well could be the worst designed entry or exit anywhere in the world.

Service lanes (and hence the entry and exit) also is open for commercial development and has access to driveways, shops, restaurants and what not. And so they recently installed speed breakers in the service/entry/exit lanes. No kidding.

Whoever designed this had no basic understanding of designing an access controlled highway and shouldn’t be working anywhere near a highway design. It was built by GMR but not sure if it was designed by them during DPR stage as well.

Meanwhile, Bangalore ORR is a whole other discussion even when compared to Chennai ORR.

[BleueNinja]

Originally Posted by three10

Fond memories! Most of my polo’s run in was completed on the hitec city - airport stretch.

One beautiful section (when going towards the airport) was a long, gradual slope turning into a rising, tight right handed turn. What fun it was turning the polo in at 120kph, 5th gear on the sport mode and gunning it to accelerate on the rise.

Ditto for me !! I remember buying my first car a flash red polo and making a bee line towards ORR as I always wanted to enjoy that drive myself

There is a particular section on ORR that you get while coming from airport towards Gachibowli where in night you get a view of entire city skyline and it looks fabulous with all the lights shimmering

[jkrishnakj]

We have two ring roads in Bangalore - an Inner Ring road and an Outer Ring Road. Both these perhaps have a traffic density much higher than any other road and are choking during peak hours.

And then, I travel to Hyd quite often, and you get onto this ORR, and its a beauty. Even when I drive to Hyderabad from Bangalore, there is one big energised feeling that you get, the moment you enter ORR here. You forget that you have driven 6+ hours to reach here. There is some amount of freshness that sets in. Its a little magical, and I hope this road remains as good as it always is.

The other good thing here is that almost everyone on this road ensures they are in speed limits. There could be one odd taxi that does 80 on the fastest lane, but barring that no one crosses the legal limits on this road. One big reason why we don't see people weaving in and out of fast moving cars, and thereby enabling people to lock onto a speed at cruise control and enjoy.

[searacer932]

I agree with the positive sentiments expressed by the members about Hyderabad's ORR. It's a great infrastructure for the city. The traffic has rapidly increased in the ORR in the last 4-5 years and in fact I see plenty of apartment that have come parallel to the ORR In the last few years.

One thing is certain in India - considering the huge population and the developing nature of the country we need all national highways to be like Hyderabad's ORR. Every National Highway should be a 8 lane highway and every expressway should be a 12 lane expressway

Originally Posted by Yieldway17

I look at Chennai ORR and its poor road design choices, construction, usage and maintenance and get envy of Hyderabad ORR every single time. What a beautiful asset to the Hyderabad people. It’s a proper expressway instead of whatever the Chennai ORRs designers came up with.

Chennai's ORR is a glorified version of Chennai Bypass road

[the.city]

Originally Posted by saleem_k

I'm a Hyderabadi but doesn't matter when you drive on the ORR coz if I wasn't one, I still would love the drive. The ease with which one can go to different areas of Hyderabad, albeit taking a longer route but a less-crowded one, is THE major advantage of commuting on ORR. I live in Financial district and it's a great commute to key places like the airport, to the B'lore highway, to Vijayawada highway, to the Mumbai highway and to Nagpur highway, once I get on the ORR. My outstation travels have become simpler and I save a lot of time once I get on the ORR and exit it, I've already made significant progress.

Another Hyderabad resident chiming in with a +1 to everything you said. The ORR makes life easier for every direction of travel, be it Mumbai, Nagpur, Vijayawada or Bangalore directions.

In fact, I regularly explain to my friends that ORR (and Telangana roads, in general) has spoilt me. Roads aren't this smooth and well maintained everywhere.

[joserajesh]

BTW there seems to be a quirk or bug in the Fast tag system. Just after lockdown had lifted, I took my family on a round trip using the ORR. Entered ORR through Gachibowli and exited at the same place after a round trip of approximately 160 KM. The toll charged to me at the end -- 0.

Anyone else had the pleasure of this?

[gauravanekar]

Hyderabad ORR reeks classism to me. Why not allow two wheelers. Rather than restricting bikes why not make some other alternate solution?

[Kanna_8118]

Originally Posted by joserajesh

BTW there seems to be a quirk or bug in the Fast tag system. Just after lockdown had lifted, I took my family on a round trip using the ORR. Entered ORR through Gachibowli and exited at the same place after a round trip of approximately 160 KM. The toll charged to me at the end -- 0.
Anyone else had the pleasure of this?

Thanks man. I many times had the itch to travel around the ring road but never materialized. Will definitely test this

[gismosin]

Originally Posted by gauravanekar

Hyderabad ORR reeks classism to me. Why not allow two wheelers. Rather than restricting bikes why not make some other alternate solution?

This is a high speed road, where vehicles are doing 100KM and Truck around 80KM. Out of the four lanes two lanes are reserved for trucks and the other two for cars. An accident at this speed is guaranteed fatal for bikes. However there is an excellent service road that runs parallel to the ORR that bikes and people who don't want to pay toll can choose. This I believe is the best setup.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by gauravanekar

Hyderabad ORR reeks classism to me. Why not allow two wheelers.

It's the same in Mumbai as well as many other cities. No 2-wheelers allowed on the Sealink, JJ Flyover, Mumbai-Pune Expressway etc. I have also wondered why, although as a car owner, I am happy to not encounter a scooter doing 40 kmph in the fast lane. Speed is one reason for sure? The average 2-wheeler / scooter sold in India really cannot do (or doesn't do) 80 - 100 kmph effortlessly. Danger (to 2-wheelers) another? Am guessing the average 2-wheeler owner will be more price sensitive to toll fees than the average 4-wheeler owner. Plus, 2-wheelers anyway can zip through traffic and get to destinations faster than cars.

Related Thread (Why are motorcyclists treated like 2nd-class citizens in India?)

[mak.prasada]

Originally Posted by gauravanekar

Hyderabad ORR reeks classism to me. Why not allow two wheelers. Rather than restricting bikes why not make some other alternate solution?

There was a spate of bike-related mishaps when the ORR was opened initially to the public. 2-wheelers, superbikes and car accidents. Honestly, those were painful lessons to the families and city. Since then, they have taken the "access-controlled" part rather seriously. Even if you have a breakdown en route, you have a patrol vehicle immediately helping you with a call. Speed limits are also, for the most part, enforced adequately.

As someone already pointed out, there are excellent service roads on both sides of the ORR. This is why they do not allow bikes onto the ORR.

[airbus]

I have recently completed 9271 KM road trip from Bengaluru, Karnataka to Sivasagar, Assam and return. In our entire journey, Nehru Outer Ring Road, Hyderabad was arguably the best section we had used.

Spotted number of traffic cops with speed cam on the median:



Different speed limits for right two and left two lanes:

[ARAY]

Back in 2016 when i bought the duster the ORR was not fully complete. However, took few trips kept the speed under 80kmph amd rev below 2500 for the first 1000kms of the duster awd. After getting the registration number in a week we started for Sikkim so ORR played a vital role during the run in period.

[Comrade]

Many have already praised the pride-of-Hyderabadis' ORR but just want to add that after recently experiencing the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) around Delhi NCR, I realized how privileged we Hyderabadis are, to have ORR.

NHAI's EPE has 120kmph speed limit, but white-topping (concrete) is not perfectly smooth, and makes the cars pitch back and forth a lot. Bridges are constructed few inches higher than the remaining elevated road, and we can feel the bumps at starting and ending of every bridge. Expansion joints in the bridges dont seem to be perfectly engineered. All together, NCR's EPE does not inspire confidence to drive at 120 kmph. In contrast, Hyderabad's ORR begs you to push the car beyond speed limit everytime. Everything is so well engineered that you dont realize the marvel unless you experience something like EPE.