Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

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ManomayLR
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Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

I'm on a holiday to UAE and am getting familiar with lots of roads, especially E motorways. I know that this may be a duplicate thread but it's designed to focus more on E motorways although a bit of other roads will come onto the picture.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

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My first reply is about E11 or Sheikh Zayed Road. It's a multilane toll motorway with collector/distributor lanes in some areas. The view of Sheikh Zayed Road from my apartment features the road with 6 lanes each side on the main carriag
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

Sorry my post got posted unfinished. I'll repost shortly.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by M19 »

I was in Abu Dhabi in 1977 - I started school there. I remember roads in the city being a series of two lane dual carriageways and roundabouts, very much like Milton Keynes, except with a lot of sand. I also remember the old Corniche and remember the peculiar street lights - US lanterns on partly curved brackets. All replaced now. This footage gives you an idea what it was like when I lived there as a kid. A bit like Milton Keynes with sand to put it crudely.

https://youtu.be/4JTlw2SEMd0
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by DJMS »

Hi, long-time lurker on Sabre.

The E11 can both be an amazing road and a not very nice one, depending on the bits you drive. The amazing parts are probably through downtown Dubai and Dubai marina where it's 6-7 lanes with the skyscrapers on both sides. The Dubai - Abu Dhabi stretch was never too bad, it could get really busy but it was D4M the whole way. Thankfully the E311 has been extended from the Dubai/Abu Dhabi border, D4M the whole way to where it drops lanes onto the E20. Last time I took the E11 through there I was stuck in a traffic jam for 2 hours where the road was hardly moving, whereas there's hardly anyone driving on the new road.

I took a drive down to Liwa the other day which takes the E11 out to the west of Abu Dhabi then the E45 south. I was on it for about 100km and road works for the entire length. It had been a couple of years since I had driven that stretch and it was even a nightmare then. It was (and still is) only 2 lanes in each direction and fairly busy with it being the main route to Saudi. Long lines of trucks in lane 1, drivers sitting in your boot at 160km/h in lane 2 and speed cameras sort of half hidden in a line of palm trees in the central reservation set to go off at 120km/h. It looks like an upgrade from D2 to D4M is taking place.

I haven't been on the Sharjah or Ajman stretches of the E11. Once north of there it's the main coastal route through Umm Al Quwain. It's only D2 but often really quiet though a pretty low speed limit along there. It was a strange drive north of Ras al Khaimah, the road markings had faded to the point there were more or less none, a few points along it people were driving it as if it was D3 though I'm pretty sure it was meant to be D2 though it was still fairly quiet. That stretch passes through some pretty industrial areas but it's the main route up to Musandam from RAK.

The E84 (Dubai - Fujairah road) could be worth a drive if you get the chance to.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

The Sheikh Zayed Rd E11 going through Dubai is indeed splendid, surrounded by modern skyscrapers and malls and also the Metro viaduct. There are not as many VMS on Sheikh Zayed Rd E11 as our smart motorways, maybe a smart E11 with hard shoulder running would be an idea? That's the RTA and the Sheikh's decision, ultimately.

The Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Rd, or E311, is further out but as far as I know, toll-free unlike other motorways such as the E66 and of course the E11 Sheikh Zayed Rd. Does the E311 convert to dual carriageway further out towards Abu Dhabi? I expected the E11 to be as grand as it is in Dubai going through to Abu Dhabi, but when 'Sheikh Zayed Rd' or E11 Dubai goes further towards Deira, old Dubai and away from the more glitzy downtown Dubai I didn't expect the road to be any more peaceful. So why less lanes?

I haven't travelled on the UK's M6toll enough to know, but if there is congestion on the main M6toll carriageway due to toll booths they should have a free-flow system like in Dubai where you can purchase and top-up a Salik tag that can deduct balance so you 'pay as you go' through toll gates. It's similar to the new Dartford crossing prepay system where you can pay for individual toll payments on the number plate or setup an account. They should use a prepay free-flow system on M6toll as well, it would reduce hassle and be less prone to possible congestion. However, the signing wouldn't be the one or two sparse signs saying "No over height vehicles."

Or maybe not, if the M6toll turns out to be too unpopular!! :o
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by DJMS »

I'm not sure how well hard shoulder running would work here, I've only seen how it works a couple of times, once on the M62 and I think the M6 was running when I had driven it a few months ago. I think it is a good idea though. There's been quite an effort to stop people driving in the hard shoulder over the last year so I don't know what stance they would take with it.

The E311 is toll free, it's free flow all the way from where it terminates on the E11 in Ras al Khaimah until it hits Jebel Ali where there are 5 at-grade roundabouts, one with the worlds longest traffic lights. Not really but it feels like it. Then it's completely free flow down to Abu Dhabi. I haven't driven past the junction with the E20 but a look on google Earth shows that it remains D3 at least until a pinch point further down where it becomes a single carriageway. They may decide to link it up to the E11 in the west when they finish the works there as there looks like enough space for it to keep going.

The E11 only passes through the southern suburbs of Abu Dhabi, it TOTSO's in a place called Shahama just slightly to the north and doesn't leave the mainland. The E10 takes the main carriageway alignment into the city from there, I've only been on there as far as Yas Island. I thought the E12 was a great road into Abu Dhabi, D5M across the islands to the east of the city, it gave the impression of a motorway across the sea in places. It starts on the E10 on the north-east side of Yas then heads north-west over to Saadiyat Island before dropping into Abu Dhabi near the corniche.

I'm not so familiar with the E11 down towards Deira, I usually park on the west side of the creek then take one of the boats over (only costs 1 dirham per crossing) if I'm down that way. The only reason I can think of for the traffic being calmer is that by then the road is heading towards Sharjah where most of the traffic may be industrial. There usually tends to be bans on times trucks can use certain roads, the E11 will likely be one of them. Sharjah (and I believe the northern Emirates) brought in a complete ban of trucks from the 1st of January on the E311 which means they all have to head out to use the E611. The E611 has been a little chaotic, it's usually quiet by the time it drops down to 3 lanes in it's northern stretch of Sharjah but lane 1 has been blocked up with trucks travelling at less than 40km/h. It looks similar to something I read about the M20 (I think it was called operation stack). Though it looks like there is some road improvements going on to ease this.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

E11 Sheikh Zayed Rd seems like a very busy and influential route as it flows through downtown Dubai as I said earlier. However it seems like people prefer E311 Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Rd, which by far has less tolls. After UAE Exchange (Jebel Ali) [know it by UAExchange metro station which was renamed UAE Exchange from Jebel Ali] why does E11 SZR become D4M from about D8M flowing past Burj Khalifa, The Dubai Mall and downtown Dubai?

SMART motorway sure would look splendid on the modern Dubai patch of the motorway, with MS4 adorning the motorway.

Don't know how good MS4s are with bilingual.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by DJMS »

I'm hazarding a guess here about the E11 going down to D4M. The stretch through Jebel Ali probably deposits a lot of traffic onto local roads taking people into the industrial areas around there.

Once you head south past the Ibn Battuta mall, you have Al Yalyais street. Google maps have this labeled as E77 which appears to be in 2 parts. The western part is often traffic heavy between the E11 and E311 but by the time you cross the E311 you're on a D4M road with barely any vehicles on it. Most of the traffic drops off on a couple of entrances to the Jebel Ali industrial zone. More drops off onto the E311 which used to be a nasty signalised oval roundabout with a couple of free flow slips. This was re-modeled so now it's a cloverleaf junction with the E311 passing as D6M underneath and the E77 passing over as D3M. A new GSJ was built last year with the E77 and E611 though it looks like they built the bridges with provisions for it to extend further out and possibly meet it's other half.

The next road south is the D57 running inbetween the Jebel Ali free zone and the industrial area. This leads up to the at-grade signalised roundabout on the E311 I mentioned in another post. Hopefully this will be the next junction due for grade separation as this can be quite busy at times with a lot of traffic trying to get from the direction of the E11 straight over for access to the Dubai investments park (DIP). The E311 was upgraded on both sides of it to D6M, dropping 2 lanes for right turns around the roundabout. The D57 connects this roundabout to DIP before it meets the E611, at the only at-grade junction on the E611, then heading out to meet the eastern part of the E77.

The guess is that once these two routes have offloaded much of the traffic from the E11, the traffic flow on the E11 becomes lighter heading towards Abu Dhabi. You're only a few miles from the Emirate boundary by the time the road becomes D4M, I can't remember about the Dubai section but HGV's are only permitted to use lane 1 on the Abu Dhabi stretches. A lot of cars are likely to join the D6M sections then head straight for lanes 4-6 (based on observation) so when the road drops down to D4M these are lanes 2-4 so unlikely it will affect the cars too much, though bad luck if you're in a HGV. It's hard to say if the E11 will be upgraded to D6M with the new part of E311 being opened though they made provisions for that to be upgraded to D6M if the road becomes busy enough.

The E311 serves as a better long-distance route, going from Abu Dhabi to Ras al Khaimah almost uninterrupted, toll free and 120km/h the whole way. The E11 isn't quite the same standard. I thought I had seen a smart motorway setup on the E11 near the world trade centre rounabout a few nights ago. It was variable speed limit anyway but perhaps more like the gantries on the M8 through Glasgow. I agree that it does look good.

It would be interesting to see what happens with the E44 (Al Khail road). It crosses the E311 as the Dubai-Hatta road, does a sort of loop towards downtown Dubai and then has a second interchange with the E311 further south though the D6M carriageways are filtered into the c/d roads which serve the junction then merge into a single carriageway. The D6M mainline continues under the bridge, fully painted and suddenly stops dead. It would be interesting to find out what the plans were for this or if it will be extended somewhere eventually.

Another one is the southern end of the E611, D6M merges into D2M and terminates on a trumpet junction on a single carriageway road. On that stretch the road is very quiet but would be interesting if they extend it to Abu Dhabi as well. Something was announced about the UAE having 4 arterial routes 119km long within the next few years, perhaps this will make up a third one.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

By "Variable Speed Limits" do you mean this?

[img]//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201701 ... 1d9af4.jpg[/img][img]//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201701 ... 1d9af4.jpg[/img]

Bit blurry but don't think it reduces the motorway speed limit- I think it's like a repeater of the NSL or normal E11 speed limit.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

Though roads may not put a smile on everyone's face, there is one road that always will: the road to home.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by ManomayLR »

Though roads may not put a smile on everyone's face, there is one road that always will: the road to home.
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Re: Roads in the UAE especially E Roads

Post by DJMS »

Interesting. The barrier I noticed was like the one in the third picture, the grey one which is across the whole width of the carriageway. I thought the road still had a speed limit of 100km/h but the signs were showing 60 when I had driven along that part which made me wonder if variable speed was being tested. Admittedly I haven't seen the other ones before on the blue signs.

When I was heading to the airport I noticed a message sign warning people about speed cameras in the tunnel further up the road, switching between English and Arabic every few seconds. I don't recall seeing many being used around the UAE and unsure if it's a variable sign but it looks like it could work.

Hope this link works to show you what I mean, it's showing the same message on street view as it was on the day:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@25.23472 ... 6656?hl=en
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