BiT, SCWRE, CED

TITLE OF THE Project

GEOMETRIC DESIGN OF HIGHWAY

ON A PROPOSED SITE

1|Proposal for Final year project, 2007 E.C

 BiT, SCWRE, CED

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

For the development of one country, transportation plays a very important role. Constructing roads
between different towns in a country helps the peoples to move from one place to another, to transport
goods from the place of origin to the consumption area, to access public infrastructures like hospitals,
schools, etc.

General history of highway in Ethiopia

From 2001 TEAH (TRANS-EAST AFRICAN-HIGHWAY) report on the road ways in Ethiopia The total
length of classified road network in Ethiopia is about 29,571 km consisting of about 3,824 km paved,
12,267 km gravel and 13,480 km rural standard road. In addition, there is a total of 30000 km unclassified
road network comprising low standard community roads, earth or dry weather roads, tracks and trails.

Now a day a country should have adequately designed enough number of roads connecting its main parts.
This helps the sufficient mobility of products, raw materials and labor as well as it has a far reaching
effects embracing administration convenience and creating national integration and cohesion, which
enhance for a better economic achievement of the country, it is this and unmentioned needs which
motivate us to do our final year project on high way.

From Bahir Dar-Adet-Dejen road which covers about 250 km our project deals with the geometric design
of 21km Bahir Dar-Adet road. This project lies in the north zone of Amhara regional state of Ethiopia
which is located in the South West of the country. The road branches off from Bahir dar-Adet-Dejen and
meets the main access road at Dejen from Bahir dar to Addis Ababa.

An important concept in highway design is that every project is unique. The setting out and character of
the area, the values of the community, the needs of highway users, and the challenges and opportunities
are unique factors that designers must consider with each highway project. For each potential project
designers are faced with the task of balancing the need for the highway improvement with the need to
safety integrate the design in to the surrounding natural and human environments.

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 BiT, SCWRE, CED

1.2 Objectives

The objective of our project is to design the geometry of the road by selecting the more feasible route
considering safety, economy and aesthetic to connect Bahir Dar- Adet – Dejen and to increase the quality
of life in the society.

1.3 Significance of the study

Highways are vitally important to a country’s economic development. The construction of a high quality
road network directly increases a nation’s economic output by reducing journey times and costs, making a
region more attractive. In addition to this,

 Connecting town to town.

 Reduce waste of energy during traveling
 Connecting people to people living in different places
 Connecting the gap between producers and customers
 Used in the transportation of materials which are unevenly distributed
 Also enable the governance of vast areas under control of nation

2. METHODOLOGIES

2.1 Site description

Our project lies in the Amhara regional state of Ethiopia which is located in east of Bahir
dar town. The road pass through Bahir dar-Adet-Dejen and meets the main access road at
Dejen from Bahir dar to Addis Ababa. In this phase we will examine the following points:-

 Knowing the terminal points of the scheme.

 From the study of a map of the area, identify and locate:

 National parks and Existence of monasteries

 Mining sites Location of construction materials
 Existing transport facilities and
 Other public facilities (electricity, water)

3|Proposal for Final year project, 2007 E.C

 BiT, SCWRE, CED

2.2 Project approach

2.2.1 Route surveying

Before we analyze and design any kinds of civil engineering works, we must gather the data required to
conduct the work. This also indicates how the project will be done. Here, in our project i.e. highway
project we have the following procedures.

 Reconnaissance Surveys

 Preliminary Surveys

 Detailed (Location) Survey

Based on the information’s collected in the previous three steps

 Select a corridor.
 Identify a number of possible centerlines within the corridor.
 Make a preliminary design for the possible alternative alignments and plot on a base map.
 Examine each of the alternative alignment with respect to grades, volume of earthwork, drainage,
crossing structures, etc to select the best alternative route

2.2.2 Traffic survey and analysis

The traffic volume is one of the parameters used for determination of design standards. In this stage we
should asses the following points.

 Traffic survey
 Types of traffic
 Traffic Forecast
 Growth rate
 Design traffic volume

The data, after the necessary investigation and final location survey, is used for geometric design,
pavement design, and design of drainage and other structures, preparation of drawings, reports, and
specifications.

4|Proposal for Final year project, 2007 E.C

 BiT, SCWRE, CED

2.2.3 Geometric Design

Geometric design in a highway design, deals with the visible dimensions of a road way. In this section we
focus on the geometric design of the following elements:-

 vertical and horizontal alignment

 cross sectional elements
 sight distance

i. Horizontal and vertical alignments

Horizontal alignment

The design, should be consistence to the topography, provide good drainage system and minimize earth
work. And the alignment selected for particular project should run without sudden changes from easy to
sharp curves. The design elements of horizontal alignments include:-

 Tangent, or straight section

 Circular curve
 Transition curve (spiral) and
 Super elevation section

Vertical alignment

Due to the ups and downs of the topography, it is not possible to join two given points straight
horizontally. So it must to use different series of grades. Vertical alignment includes:

 Location of appropriate gradients.

 Joining the grades with smooth curve

ii. Road cross sectional elements

The following elements will be done in this section. These are:-

 Carriage way
 Shoulders, or curbs
 Drainage features and Earth work profiles

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 BiT, SCWRE, CED

2.3 Data Collection

Topography Survey
Traffic Survey
Hydrological data

2.4 Equipments/Instruments used to conduct our project

 GPS(Geographical Positioning system)

 DEM(Digital Elevation Model)
 Total Station
 Eagle point auto cade
 Auto cade 2007
 Microsoft Excel
 Microsoft Word

3. Expected Output

 A complete sets of output for a road design includes:-

– Site plan of proposed alignment

– Detailed Plan & Profile

– Cross-sections for Earth work

– Typical Roadway sections at selected locations (e.g. junctions)

– A mass-haul diagram

– Construction details of structures like bridges, culverts,

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 BiT, SCWRE, CED

4. Timeline

: Generalized Schedule of our project activities

Phase Activity time schedule in months

Project Activity
Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun
Title selection

I.
Proposal writing

Data collection

II.

Data analysis

Writing the project report

III.

Submission of the first draft

of the project report
IV.

submission of the final

project report
V.

To undertake our project we have a work plan having four stages. These are:-

I. Data collection stage

II. Data analysis stage
III. Preliminary design stage
IV. Final design stage

7|Proposal for Final year project, 2007 E.C

 BiT, SCWRE, CED

5. Budgets

To conduct this project, the following estimated money is needed.

No Items required Unit QTY Unit price Total remark
in Birr price in
Birr
1 Stationary materials

1.1. A4 paper “Desta” 1 100 100

1.2. Ball pen Pack 1 120 120

1.3. Pencils No 6 1.5 9
1.4. Eraser No 6 3 18
1.5 Binder No 6 5 30

2 Data analysis cost

2.1. Software purchase ( No 1 750 750

eagle point )
2.2 Transport for site visit person 6 100 600

2.3 For data collectors( person 6 100 600

missed data collection)
3 Contingencies Birr ----- 400 400

Total 2627 birr

8|Proposal for Final year project, 2007 E.C

 BiT, SCWRE, CED

6. References

 Highway I and II lecture notes

 Surveying I and II lecture notes
 Undergraduate Final Year Project Proposal and Final Project Document Guidelines
 ERA (ETHIOPIAN ROAD AUTHORITY) manual
 AASHTO(AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION
OFFICIALS) manual

9|Proposal for Final year project, 2007 E.C