Rawalpindi Ring Road: 38 km Baanth to Thalian road waits on toll plazas before opening

The Rawalpindi Ring Road is built but still closed: the 38 km road from Baanth to Thalian cannot open to traffic until its toll plazas are finished, Dawn reported on Saturday 3 October. The main carriageway is complete, but the toll plazas have only their foundations, and the weighing stations, the computerised ticketing system, some retaining walls, ramps and greenbelts are still to be done.

Rawalpindi Commissioner Salman Ghani inspected the road on Friday and ordered the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and the contractor, the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), to put maximum resources into the remaining work, including signage and buying the hardware and software for toll collection. No opening date was announced.

Rawalpindi Ring Road route and interchanges

• Length: 38.3 km, from Baanth to Thalian.
• Interchanges (five): Baanth, Maira Mohra, Khasala, Kolian Parr and Thalian, according to Dawn.
• Roads it links: the GT Road, Peshawar Road and Murree Road, ProPakistani reported in July.
• Cost: more than Rs 29 billion had been released by July 2026.
• Run by: the Punjab Ring Road Authority, which will collect the tolls and manage traffic.
• Still to come: a separate Rs 5 billion Thalian interchange, to be built after the road opens; its revised PC-I had not been finalised, Dawn said. An industrial zone is also planned along the route.

The road was reported as 98% complete in July, with the toll plazas then described as the only major work left. Three months on, they are still the reason it is closed.

What it will cost to use

The toll will apply to public transport, goods vehicles and private cars. Officials told Dawn the rates will likely match Lahore's ring road, but no figures have been notified yet. We will add the toll table here when the Punjab Ring Road Authority publishes it.

What it means for you

For Rawalpindi and Islamabad drivers, the ring road is meant to take heavy goods traffic off the GT Road, Peshawar Road and Murree Road and cut time and fuel on cross-city trips. Until it opens, those trucks stay on city roads. Until then, keep using your current route and work out the fuel on our fuel cost calculator at today's petrol price. Once the toll is known, the fuel average calculator will tell you whether the bypass saves you money.

This page will be updated with the opening date and toll rates.