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Lecture-3 Highway Alignment - Notes

The document discusses highway alignment and the factors that must be considered when designing it. Highway alignment includes both horizontal and vertical alignment of the roadway. An ideal alignment should be short, easy to construct and maintain, safe for traffic, and economical over the life of the roadway. Key factors that control the alignment include obligatory points the highway must or must not pass through, traffic patterns and volumes, geometric design standards, and economics including construction, maintenance, and vehicle operation costs over the life of the road. Proper consideration of all relevant factors is necessary to judiciously design an optimal highway alignment.

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106 views

Lecture-3 Highway Alignment - Notes

The document discusses highway alignment and the factors that must be considered when designing it. Highway alignment includes both horizontal and vertical alignment of the roadway. An ideal alignment should be short, easy to construct and maintain, safe for traffic, and economical over the life of the roadway. Key factors that control the alignment include obligatory points the highway must or must not pass through, traffic patterns and volumes, geometric design standards, and economics including construction, maintenance, and vehicle operation costs over the life of the road. Proper consideration of all relevant factors is necessary to judiciously design an optimal highway alignment.

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pubz comedy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Highway Alignment

LECTURE-03

HIGHWAY ALIGNMENT

Introduction:

The position or the layout of the centre line of the highway on the ground is called the
alignment. Highway alignment includes both horizontal and vertical alignment of the roadway.
The horizontal alignment includes the straight path, the deviations and horizontal curves.
Changes in gradient and vertical curves are covered under vertical alignment of roads.

A new road should be aligned very carefully as improper alignment would result in
increase in one or more of the following:

1. Construction cost
2. Maintenance cost
3. Vehicle operation cost
4. Accident rate

Requirements:

The basic requirements of an ideal alignment between two terminal stations are that it
should be:

a. Short
b. Easy
c. Safe
d. Economical
a. Short: It is desirable to have a short (or shortest) alignment between two terminal
stations. A straight alignment would be the shortest, though there may be several
practical considerations which would cause deviations from the shortest path.
b. Easy: The alignment should be such that it is easy to construct and maintain the road
with minimum problems. Also the alignment should be easy for the operation of
vehicles with easy gradients and curves.
c. Safe: The alignment should be safe enough for construction and maintenance from the
view point of stability of natural hill slopes, embankment and cut slopes and foundation
of embankments. Also it should be safe for the traffic operation with safe geometric
features.

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Highway Alignment

d. Economical: The road alignment could be considered economical only if the total life
cycle cost considering the initial cost, maintenance cost and vehicle operation cost is
lowest. All these factors should be given due consideration before working out the
economics of each alignment.

Factors controlling alignment:

It is not always possible to satisfy all requirements. Hence we have to make a judicial choice
considering all the factors. The various factors that control the alignment are as follows:

a. Obligatory Points: These are the control points governing the highway alignment.
These points are classified into two categories. Points through which it should pass and
points through which it should not pass. Some of the examples are,
i. As shown in fig: 3.1 it sometimes so happens that suitable bridge site is not
available along the road alignment because of peculiar characteristics of river
or stream. Thus the straight road alignment PQ of road has to be deviated in the
form of a curve to accommodate the suitable bridge site along the river or
stream.

Fig: 3.1 Suitable bridge site along the river


ii. In certain cases, the road alignment is to be altered to keep away certain points
or places. For instance, places of religious worship, monumental buildings,
graves, tombs etc. are protected by law from the acquisition process for any

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Highway Alignment

purpose. The other instances of this category are lake, pond, water – logged
ground, etc. In all such cases, the straight road alignment PQ is to be deviated
to PRSQ, as shown in fig: 3.2

Fig: 3.2 Deviated alignment along PRSQ


b. Traffic: The road alignment should be decided based on the requirements of road traffic.
Origin and Destination study should be carried out in the area and the desire lines be
drawn showing the trend of traffic flow. The new road to be aligned should keep in
view the desire lines, anticipated traffic flow, classified traffic volume, their growth and
future trends.
c. Geometric Design: Geometric design factors such as gradient, radius of curve, sight
distance etc. also governs the alignment of the highway. To keep the radius of curve
minimum, it may be required to change the alignment of the highway. The alignments
should be finalized such that the obstructions to visibility do not restrict the minimum
requirements of sight distance. The design standards vary with the class of road & the
terrain and accordingly the highway should be aligned.
d. Economics: The alignment finalised should be economical. While working out the
economics, the factors to be considered are,
(i) Initial construction cost of the road
(ii) Regular and periodic maintenance cost of the road and
(iii) Vehicle operation cost in future years.

While trying to decrease the initial construction cost, either the future road maintenance
cost or vehicle operation cost or both of these may increase considerably. Therefore
while carrying out economic analysis, it is essential to work out overall economics

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Highway Alignment

based on “Life Cycle Cost” of the road project and not consider only the initial cost of
the road project.

e. Other considerations:
(i) Various other factors which may govern either the horizontal or vertical
alignment of the road are drainage considerations, hydrological factors, political
considerations and monotony.
(ii) In a flat terrain, it is possible to have a very long stretch of road, absolutely
straight without horizontal curves. But straight road of very long stretch may be
monotonous for driving. Hence, after a few kilometres of straight road, it may
be desirable to have a slight bend or to provide some road side amenities, to
break the monotony and keep the driver alert.
(iii) During alignment of hill roads, special care should be taken on the following
points which pertain to the hill roads:
1. Stability of hill side slopes
2. Drainage of surface and subsurface water flowing from the hill side
3. Special geometric standards for hill roads, and
4. Resisting length

4 | Transportation Engineering -1 (2017-18) S.R.K.R. ENGINEERING COLLEGE - BHIMAVARAM

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