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At 10:40 pm, the fastest way home and the safest way home are often two different roads.
Every map app on your phone answers one question really well: how do I get there quickly? None of them answers the one a woman actually asks before she walks back from the metro, the library or a friend’s place: which way is safer right now?
So we built Safe Routes in ORBII. It is a safe route finder for India that shows you the safest route, not just the fastest one, and explains why.
How Safe Routes works
Type where you are going. Choose Walk or Drive, and when you are leaving: now, or later tonight.
ORBII finds two or three real alternative routes and gives each one a safety score out of 100, with words next to the number so the colour never has to carry the meaning:
- Busy and lit (70 and above)
- Some activity (45 to 69)
- Quiet stretches (below 45)
The fastest route and the safest route are both marked, side by side, with the time and distance of each. Then you choose. ORBII never picks for you.
What the safety score looks at
This is not a guess and nothing is hard coded. Every route is scored on real map data, at the hour you will be there.
- Open places along the way. Shops, chai stalls, dhabas, restaurants, pharmacies, ATMs and hotels within about 120 metres of the route on foot. Each one is judged at the minute you reach it, using its real opening hours. A kirana that shuts at 10 pm counts at 9:30 and not at 10:30.
- The longest dark stretch. The longest part of the route with nothing open nearby. It is drawn on the map as a dashed line, with how far in it starts, so you know exactly where to stay alert.
- Main roads versus lanes. How much of the way is on main roads, and how much is on narrow gullies and service lanes.
- Help on the way. Police stations, hospitals and 24 hour fuel pumps you pass.
- Bus stops and metro stations. Places where there are usually people around.
- CCTV cameras. Mapped surveillance cameras, counted by how much of the route they can see, not just how many there are.
- Street lighting. Roads mapped as lit or unlit.
- Exposed stretches. Stairs, underpasses, subways, alleys and dirt tracks, which are the places people warn each other about.
- Real night activity. Over time, streets where ORBII users really walk at night, counted anonymously and only where at least five different people have passed, so no single person can ever be traced.
The safest route at night is not the safest route by day
The same road can be full at 7 pm and deserted at 11 pm. That is why Safe Routes asks when you are leaving. Move the time from now to midnight and watch the scores change as shops close and stretches go dark. A route can be the safest at dinner time and the riskiest after the last metro.
It tells you when it does not know
Some streets simply have not been mapped yet. A safety app that calls an unmapped street “dangerous” is lying, and so is one that calls it “safe”.
So ORBII separates the two. A dark stretch is one where places are mapped but none is open at that hour. An unmapped stretch is one where the map has no data at all, and ORBII says so plainly, with a note that the score has low confidence there. And inside a mapped university or college campus, a walk between hostel blocks is not marked as unsafe just because there are no shops on the way.
From the safest route to a safe journey
Once you have picked a route, one tap starts a Safe Journey with the time already filled in, so your circle can follow you home and is told if you do not arrive. You can choose which circle watches, and switch on Audio Escort so they can hear what is around you, live, until you reach.
Prefer turn-by-turn directions? Tap Directions and the same route opens in Google Maps.
Why we think it is the best safe route app in India
We are biased, so here is what we built it to do differently:
| A normal map app | ORBII Safe Routes | |
|---|---|---|
| Picks the route by | Time | Time and a safety score you can see |
| Knows which shops are open when you pass | No | Yes, from real opening hours |
| Shows the longest dark stretch | No | Yes, on the map |
| Changes for 9 pm vs midnight | Traffic only | Open places, activity and light |
| Flags stairs, underpasses, alleys | No | Yes |
| Starts a Safe Journey for your circle | No | One tap |
| Says when data is missing | No | Yes, never pretends |
It is built in India, for Indian streets: dhabas, chai stalls, kiranas and metro stations count, and the hours are read in Indian time.
Who Safe Routes is for
- Students walking from the library, the metro or a coaching centre back to a PG or hostel.
- Women working late in IT, BPO, hospitals and retail, heading home after a night shift.
- Anyone new to a city who does not yet know which lanes go quiet after dark.
- Parents who want their daughter on the busier road, not the shorter one.
Where it works
Safe Routes uses ORBII’s own map of more than 4.7 lakh places across India, from Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Pune to Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Guwahati and Bhopal, and the smaller towns in between. Walking routes go up to 12 km and driving routes up to 40 km.
The honest limits
A safety score is information, not a promise. Map data can be out of date, a shop can close early, and street lighting is only known where someone has mapped it. Use Safe Routes to choose the better way, trust your own sense of a place, and keep Voice SOS on: if anything feels wrong, say “help” or “bachao” and your circle is alerted, even with the phone in your bag.
The fastest route gets you home sooner. The safest route is the one you should know about before you start walking. Now you can.
Get ORBII on Google Play and try Safe Routes on your own walk home tonight.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best safe route app in India?
We built ORBII Safe Routes to be it. Most map apps find the fastest route. ORBII Safe Routes shows two or three real routes and scores each one out of 100 for the time you will actually be on it: which shops, pharmacies and dhabas are open then, which roads are lit, how much is on main roads, which police stations and hospitals you pass, and where the longest stretch with nothing open is. You pick the route. It is part of the ORBII app on Android.
How does ORBII know if a route is safe?
It reads real map data from OpenStreetMap: more than 4.7 lakh shops, food places, pharmacies, hospitals, police stations, fuel pumps, ATMs, bus stops, metro stations and mapped CCTV cameras across India, with their real opening hours. Each place is judged at the minute you reach it, so a shop that shuts at 10 pm counts at 9 pm and not at 11 pm. It also checks street lighting where it is mapped, road types, and exposed stretches like stairs, underpasses, subways, alleys and dirt tracks.
Does the safety score change at night?
Yes. That is the point. The same road can be busy at 7 pm and empty at 11 pm. Choose when you are leaving and ORBII scores every route for that time, using each place's opening hours. A route that is the safest by day is not always the safest at night.
What is the 'longest dark stretch'?
It is the longest continuous part of a route with nothing open nearby. Twenty shops in one block followed by a dark kilometre is worse than fewer shops spread out, and simply counting shops cannot see that. ORBII draws that stretch on the map as a dashed line and tells you how far into the route it starts.
Is Safe Routes free?
Yes. Safe Routes is part of the free ORBII app. ORBII Plus adds verified helpers nearby during an SOS.
Does it work for driving, cabs and autos too?
Yes. Choose Walk or Drive. On foot, what is right next to you matters most. In a car, cab or auto, staying on main roads matters most, so the score weighs them differently. Walking routes go up to 12 km and driving routes up to 40 km.
Does ORBII Safe Routes work inside a college campus?
Yes. Inside a mapped university or college campus there are no shops and the paths are footways, so street signals would unfairly call it empty. ORBII recognises campus outlines and does not count a walk between blocks as a dark stretch.
Is Safe Routes better than Google Maps for safety?
They do different jobs. Google Maps is excellent at getting you there fast. ORBII Safe Routes answers a different question: which way is safer at this hour. Many people use both: pick the safer route in ORBII, then tap Directions to follow it in Google Maps with the same path.
Does ORBII save the routes I check?
No. The routes you check are not saved to your account or shown to anyone. ORBII keeps only a count of how many checks you made in the last hour, to stop misuse, and deletes it within two days.