Great information! Thanks for taking the time to describe so thoroughly.

Quick Summary and add-on post Quetta

Timings:
Expect to dedicate 4 days from the border crossing to leaving Quetta
Day 1 - cross the border at Taftan and sleep in police station
Day 2 - escort to Quetta
Day 3 - getting the NOC in Quetta
Day 4 - leave Quetta

NB this does not take into account weekends when the NOC office is closed.

Potential accelerated version (but unlikely)
If you cross the border early enough on day 1 and they have enough people, the escort may leave Taftan the same day meaning you sleep in Dalbandin that evening. Day 2 would get you to Quetta and potentially you could if you’re very lucky and the timings are right, get the NOC the same day, but highly unlikely. Day 3 you could leave Quetta. Again, this is unlikely, planning for 4 days is more realistic.

Another accelerated version could be asking to get the NOC for departure the same day - for example you are a foot passenger and want to get a train the same day (if there’s one leaving that day), you could actually leave Quetta on day 3.

Leaving Quetta:
If you are taking a bus or train from Quetta, you will be escorted to the station to buy the ticket. Once you are on board, you are free from the escort.

If you are in your own vehicle, you will be escorted to the border of Balochistan. By motorbike, this took us a whole day. We left at 8.30 am, changed escort countless times all day long, but it was faster than the escort the day before because it was just us, no foot passengers obviously and no slower trucks.
We crossed out of Balochistan at 6pm and had two blissful hours of freedom without escort (including a 30 minute stop where the road was closed because they were rigging up an electricity pylon). An hour before DI Khan, we ran into a police checkpoint and they insisted the region, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is not safe enough for us to roam without escort. The escort and usual changes of lead pick-up took 2.5 hours but we made it to DI Khan where they set a guard up outside our hotel room all night. The next day, we were escorted to the border with Punjab, just a few hours away, and then set free again just beyond the border after the checkpoint (which took a while to get through).

All in all, Taftan to Islamabad by motorbike took us 5 days (actually 6 because we took an extra day’s rest in Quetta to recover from illness). Realistically, I don’t think you can expect to go much faster given the speed of the escorts, the potential pairing with slower vehicles, the time it takes to get the NOC etc

Also keep in mind the toll that journeying in this way takes on your body. We both succumbed to illness and our energy levels were taxed to the max because of the long hours spent on the bikes.

SUPER SUMMARY
- Crossing the Iran/Pakistan border at Taftan to arriving in Islamabad (Punjab) where you are free from escorts takes AT LEAST 5 DAYS.
- Prepare for long days, low speeds, countless changes of escort vehicules, no proper meals for days, very hot temperatures, breakdowns that leave you stranded in the sun with no shade.
- Pack more water than you think you will need, and food.
- As a motorcyclist, you will suffer more than anyone else, demand breaks (or longer breaks) to have time to rest and eat, even if they push back and it delays the other travellers (who can eat while driving).
- Go with the flow, you won’t get rid of your escorts until you reach Punjab (at least this was the situation in June 2022).

Very detailed description.

The Baluchistan crossing is i think worse then ever. It started very well.
Left day 1 early in BAM, around 7 am, just had a stop in Zahedan town center to change my rials to ruppees, toke some time to find and get in and out of town, and the change. Getting petrol also is complicated, big cues and even then you pay 5 times the normal price then official, which is still better then pakistani price, after i filled up in Mirjaveh, just before the border, it took me almost an hour. The crossing itself is quiet simpel, took altogether 3 hours, arrived 13.30 and at16.30 i was at the levies station at Taftan pakistani side.
Day 2: The levies arrived nice at 8.00 and off we go,they changes endless from escort, and waitngntimes went up, it took 9 hours to get to Danbaldin. Sleep again in levies-station, its dirty but they are friendly. I slept in my car anyway, even its not perfect made for it.
Day 3, levies started again 8.00, hopefull, but nono, same shit, it took another 9 hours to get to Quetta, arrived to late to make the NOC, straight to Bloomstar hotel, 3500 for a room and 2800 for diner and some extra to the breakfast, because it was vvery basic. 6300 ruppees whats about 30 euros. Its pretty clean, but very basic, i will put fotos on google mapps off it.
Day 4/ LEVIES arrive 10.00, go to the NOC-office, its not that complicated, takes a good half hour, back to Bloomstar, pick up car and luggage, and off we go, full of hope. But, nonon, wrong bet, first to police station, more paperwork to do, and join some english pakistanis and some germans, 3 vehicles, not to bad. It was about 13.30 when we really went out of Quetta. At darkness we had moved a record of 190 kms, even not to Zhob, sleep in big police-station, rooms and matrass dirty, sleep in car again (3th night).
Day 5: started around 9.00, endless changes of escorts, and at some place it took almost an hour to do paperwork, because they where military, and no Levies or Police. After sunset we entered D.I. Khan, nothing was aranged, the escorts had no clue what to do. I decided to escape and booked the only reasonoble hotel in town (National club). When we arrived, they refused us to give a room because the NOC said Islamabad, and not D.I. KHAN. After some dicussion, my english and german friends also arrived, with the escort, hahaha. They had same problem, it took hours of discussion, before they agreed to give us a room, we were 8 people. Lucky we had 3 guys who speak Urdu with us.
Day 6, escort arrived at about 10.00, again escorted out off town, it was around 12.00 on day 6 when we entered the motorway north of D.I. KHAN towards Islamabad and no more escorts, arrived Islamabad around 16.00. Knever ever i have seen such incompetent people. I ws in the Bosnian war escorted in the 90s, that worked better . . .
Al together, be prepared for the unexfpected !!

Interesting that they took you through Zhob, almost certainly the least secure of the four major routes heading out of Quetta to lowland Pakistan. I stayed in Zhob for a night there 13 years ago (no escorts) on the way to Kohat, a very beautiful journey indeed.

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

We were 3 cars and trucks with 8 persons, and all had to go to Islamabad for an Indian visa, i think that was the main reason they took us by Zhob and not Multan. If you have your indian visa before, and go straight to Wagah border it would be shorter and maybe safer taking the Multan-road.
I also wanted to do the Karakoram highway, and went up to the chinese border 3 days ago, it was really good snowing and the temperature dropped to minus 9 degrees. I went up bu Barbusar pass on 18th and had no problem at all, but now its closed by heavy snow, it means i had to come back the other way (as planned) by Dassu and Besham. Roadconditions there are really bad, i was stuck in a protest from local farmers near Chilas for 2 hours, later there where several landslides before Dassu, they are building 2 big dams there, and they are moving the mainroad several hundred of meters up because the old road will flow, and because of these roadworks, upstairs, the oldroad often get landslides downstairs. Took also more then an hour to cross that section. Then arriving in Dassu, there was again protests in the town center, i was alone in the middle of heated protests, when the police saw my lefthanddrive, they escorted me out, to take the "bypass", its more a gravel goat-track, but i getted away. All together it took me 11 hours for 330 kms from Gilgit to Besham . . Inshaalaahhh !!