[vigsom]

Introduction

This is a short ride report cum review on Hyderabad’s Nehru Outer Ring Road (ORR) - arguably the finest road that I’ve been on in India so far. This road’s USP is that once you’ve entered the road from any of the entry points and locked the vehicle’s speed at, say, 90kmph, one doesn’t need to drop that speed one bit until the exit that one plans to take to get off the road.





Safety

1. Kept my seat belt on when I was seated in the rear seat.
2. Urged the driver to put his seat belt on

[vigsom]

Why was I on Nehru ORR?

I was in Hyderabad on work and had to head back to the Airport from a place off NH44 approx. 25km from the Kandlakoya junction. I've been to this location earlier, but the last time, I was taken through the city since that was a low traffic time. This time, I had a tight timeline and hence had to take the ORR.

What I liked

* A proper “ring” road around Hyderabad offering entry and exit points
* Seamless connectivity to the Airport, and Financial District
* 4+4 lanes
* Speed limits marked at 100kmph
* Lined up with good vegetation both on the median and on the sides - pleasing to the eye
* Connectivity to National highways eg: Mumbai, Vijayawada, Warangal, Bangalore, Nagpur
* Large signages - route and exit markings
* Exit markings are shown 2km ahead of the actual exit to help drivers plan the exit well
* Elevated and barricaded
* No crossings possible

Opportunities for improvement

* Maintenance staff engaged in trimming of vegetation leave the warning cones carelessly on the fast lane with no warning to approaching drivers
* On the route towards the Airport, there was a point below a road overhead where the extreme right lane had some mud piled up - can be dangerous for motorists
* longer connectivity from certain areas of the city to the ORR (Eg. Uppal)
* Bugs in the night can be a challenge
* Exit needs perfect planning; missing an exit can prove time and kms consuming

Large easy to read route and exit markings




Exit marking - sample

[vigsom]

My ride experience on the Nehru ORR

I was in a Swift Dzire Tour cab riding from NH44 past Medchal to the airport. Once the cab entered the ORR, I noticed that he didn’t have to drop speed for the entire one hour he was on the ORR; no moving in and out of lanes, no trailing trucks before overtaking, nothing. I also got to see some lovely views of the Financial District, some novel looking HT towers, and some swanky buildings en-route.

Driving past a colourful D.E.C Infra project Kollur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqBAilRSdpk

Different looking towers supporting HT power lines




Exit to the Financial District


View of the Financial District




Driving past the Financial District

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jWszJ6Gbndo&

Gachibowli and Hitex Exit


Jayabheri Peak - standing tall


Exit to RGIA Airport - note the shabby set up just at the exit separator


Approach to the Airport

[vigsom]

Key takeaways

1. There may be better roads in the country that I've not been on, but for me, a road on which one doesn’t have to drop speed at all is a benchmark
2. Even the best roads can be marred by some below par practices – eg. cones placed irresponsibly on the fast lane (extreme right) by maintenance staff or the right lane on this road having a small heap of mud at one point
3. It is fine to build a road, but to maintain it professionally, and ensure safety of motorists is an even more difficult task - this is where Indian infrastructure contractors have a lot of work to do

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[OrangeCar]

For me, this Hyderabad ORR is the best road in India. Period.

Even the newly constructed national highways do not match it.

The road is asphalt (not white topped). Road markings are prominent, and one doesn't have to guess things around. Exits are well marked, so much so that exit boards exist at least half a kilometer before you approach the exit, so that you could plan your lane shifts.

Overall a bills to drive on this road. Well conceived, brilliantly executed and superbly maintained road. Hats off!

All this admiration coming in from a Bengalurean! And Bengaluru's ORR is.. nothing short of a nightmare.

[Fx14]

Originally Posted by vigsom

This road’s USP is that once you’ve entered the road from any of the entry points and locked the vehicle’s speed at, say, 90kmph, one doesn’t need to drop that speed one bit until the exit that one plans to take to get off the road.

This is what amazed me too when on a trip there in 2019.

The only bottleneck we faced was at the toll booths in both directions from and to the airport. The toll booth bottlenecks would have to be a project in itself to alleviate the problems faced all over the country.

As an aside, another take away from that trip was the express check-in lane at the airport while departing. If you had done an e-check-in and had just cabin luggage you could use this lane to bypass the rush. This was the first time I experienced such an option at any of the Indian airports that I had travelled through. Even Mumbai didn't have such an option.

[ramnaresh_2000]

Very well summed up experience of Hyderabad ORR. Being a hyderabadi I am really proud of our ORR and how well it is maintained. I have been using ORR even before it officially launched

I wanted to visit airport and the google maps showed me ORR route, those were the days when Google maps did not have a bike mode. I blindly followed the maps and ended up getting warning from ORR patrol police that no 2 wheelers are allowed on it. They let go off me with a warning as I showed them the maps and told I was not aware of the rule. The toll booths were also not ready at that time.

Later I started using it to visit my hometown (this time on 4 wheeler). The exits were not marked properly, I had to rely on maps again. The exits are planned very badly, I had to drift in my 1st gen verna on one exit as the curve was almost 360 degrees and I was around 50 speed. I never expected such a huge curve, it was never ending.

Later they started marking exits properly and started fastag acceptance. Then I was driving during a rainy season, there were some puddles which remind me mini lakes. Water used to flow over the vehicle at good speed. Mind you I had a tall boy TUV300 at that time.

Many accidents and illegal racing events later, the Hyderabad traffic police has implemented a very strict speed limit and a penalty of 1000 bucks plus tax if you exceed 100 kmph. This contained the accidents very well. Nothing motivates a man like money ha?

[vashisth]

Many thanks for highlighting a beautiful asset of Hyderabad city. No doubt it is very well maintained and brilliantly planned project which gives peripheral connectivity to almost entire city. Few points I want to add-

1) Good that no vehicles other than four wheelers are allowed.
2) Being literally an unobstructed roadway, it becomes highly accident prone for the careless drivers who trend to rash-drive or race. These vehicles must be monitored remotely and penalized. Number of speed guns and CCTV camera need to go up, which presently do not cover entire track all around.
3) Stationary vehicles and trucks with non-functional back lights have proved death traps for less watchful.

[Rajamass]

The Hyderabad ORR is an excellent project by the erstwhile United AP government. If I remember correctly it was opened in late 2000s. At that time itself, it costed 52cr per km which includes all expenses.

Now the ORR serves it's purpose but during the initial period, it was mostly empty and there was no speed limit as well. The kind of road Bengaluru badly needs.

[som9729]

Originally Posted by vigsom

Why was I on Nehru ORR?

* longer connectivity from certain areas of the city to the ORR (Eg. Uppal)

Uppal was once considered to be a developing hub, and to be far away from the core city. Now its the opposite!

How times change!

But that's the inevitable situation for the entire core city to ORR/Airport, until an airport metro comes up!

Also, do take note of the RRR plan made.
Its basically a bigger circle drawn around the ORR.
Note - Yellow circle around the city is the ORR

[three10]

Fond memories! Most of my polo’s run in was completed on the hitec city - airport stretch. At that time there were no speed traps, and the actual official speed limit was 120kph. At one point, i had each and every turn on the route memorised.

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.

Thanks for bringing some joy into the day! Glad you enjoyed the commute.

[vnabhi]

Very nice tribute to the Hyd ORR, which is really a gem. I make it a point to use a part of it at least once a month, though the nearest point (Gachibowli) is 15 kms away. I've also used it once last month for a drive of 80 kms to and fro to get rid of a DPF overloaded warning on my BS6 diesel Ecosport. And the best part of it is that one can really use cruise control for the most part.

As already mentioned, there were no speed limits earlier, and I could test the top speed of my cars on it in the early days. But later, owing to many accidents, they put a limit of 120 kmph, and again reduced it to 100 a couple of years ago.

Most of my friends from across India, who have used the ORR agree that it is one of the best-designed and maintained highways in the country, though there are minor glitches like the ones posted by vigsom. And one more misleading signage is the exit to Gachibowli when driving from the Bangalore exit--it says 5.2 kms (or 6.2), though the exit is only 500 meters ahead! Perhaps they were referring to the total distance to Gachibowli from that point, and not the distance to the exit!

Below is a gist of when the parts of the ORR were thrown open:-

1. Gachibowli to Shamshabad--on Nov 14th, 2008. 23 kms .

2. Shamshabad to Pedda Amberpet (Vijaywada highway) sometime in 2010. 38 kms in all.

3. Narsingi to Muthangi (Mumbai highway)--June 2011, 24 kms.

4. Muthangi to Shamirpet (Karimnagar highway), past the Nagpur highway--3-Dec-2012, 34 kms.

However, a small bit of 2 kms near Kandlakoya village was still not done, so one had to exit to the Nagpur highway and then join the ORR on the other side to go towards Shamirpet.

5. Shamirpet to Keesara (Warangal highway) August 2014--distance not recorded.

6. Keesara to Peddamberpet--mid 2016, distance not recorded.

7. 2 km part of ORR near Kandlakoya village on the Nagpur highway--mid 2018.

During pandemic times, as the cars were lying idle, I did a complete chakkar of the ORR on my Fiesta--it was 154 kms. I did the same on my Ecosport last year during the 3rd wave. It helped keeping the vehicles in top condition.

[GForceEnjoyer]

Hyderabad's ORR is easily one of the best roads in the country and one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. You can just set the cruise control and forget it. Fantastic road surfacing on most stretches too.

However, driving on some stretches at the limit of 100 km/h really gets boring, such as the long straight section between exit 1 and 2. 120 km/h felt like a totally reasonable speed. The reckless speeders used to speed since there was no enforcement of speed limits. Reducing the limit for everyone just increased travel times for the law abiding citizen while reckless drivers continued to do what they always did. What I'm saying here is, that enforcement is the key to having speed limits followed, be it 60, 100 or 120. For the ORR, 120 km/h was the sweet spot.

[MT_Hyderabad]

Wow! Someone got the feel of a driver's paradise aka ORR-Hyderabad. Thanks for your review.

It is my daily drive to office and I enjoy each day of my driving.

I have been travelling on ORR since 12 years. Yes, 12 years. It was not completed by that time and I have seen it built up over the years.

I had the pleasure of not only driving, but riding on the ORR, wherein I enjoyed opening up the throttle of my motorcycle (Yamaha Fazer, FZ16 based) and realising the importance of wind drag on a motorcycle. I used to go all the way to the Airport from Miyapur in winters (40 km one way) and what a soul soothing ride that used to be.

Regarding your views on the placement of cones and contractor professionalism, it is a daily site for me and I do not think there is any other option for gardners to nip the flora on the edge of the road. If you got any suggestions, please provide it to the government, it will help the gardners also, who risk there life for such works.

Also, Hyderabad Government still doesn't have helicopters to water these plants and use slow moving water tankers

But not everything is good about this road, it used to be a soul gobbler at a certain point.

The most tragic accidents that I am aware about on an incomplete ORR, was that of a truck which failed to spot a make shift toll booth on an unfinished section on the ORR near Medchal and rammed into a Tavera waiting at the Toll booth. All occupants of the Tavera were killed instantaneously. They were coming from some marriage.

I used to see the left over car for a few days while crossing that section in 2016.

The second notorious mishap, which led to ban on two wheelers on ORR was that of former Indian Cricket team captain Azharuddin's son, who used to goto ORR for testing the speed limit of his bike. Unfortunately, his bike (GSX R1000, max speed 300 km/hr) was much more powerful and he lost control and got killed along with his family member in 2011.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/53955379.cms

https://www.drivespark.com/two-wheel...ving-tips.html