History of Road Construction and Highway Planning in India

INTRODUCTION

History of Road Construction and Highway Planning in India

• Road – Any hard surface on which a vehicle can travel.
• Pavement – If a Road is constructed with a number of layers is called as pavement.
• Highway – pavement is designed for high speed & high traffic.
  Highway is constructed over an embankment for No-drainage problem.

R.L of Highway > R.L of High Flood level

Classification of Road

1) Urban Road

Expressway

• It provided for connecting major cities
• In an express highway, extra facilities are provided and limited control access.
• Design for very high speed

Arterial street

• This road within cities for high mobility of traffic with a continuous route.

Sub-Arterial street

• This provided for a lower level of travel mobility than arterial streets.

Collector street

• Constructed for distributing & collecting the traffic.

Local street

• This provided access to residential, commercial, institutional, or business areas.

2) Rural Road

• National highway – connecting commercial & industrial sector with airport, seaport, tourist centre, state capitals.
  • Control by CPWD & MES.
• State highway – main road of the state connecting with the national highway or important cities within the state. – control by state agencies (PWD, ZP)
• District Road – connecting the village to the district headquarters, or national highway, or the state highway
  • Major District Road
  • Other District Road
• Village Road – connecting village to village. Contribution to Transportation

Railway > Roadway > Waterway > Airway

North-south corridor & East-west corridors

DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING

• Roman Roads
  • They are built straight without a gradient.
  • The total thickness of these roads is 75 to 120 cm
    
  • Drawbacks –
    • No drainage system
    • No crosslope provided
    • large foundation stones placed at the bottom.
• Tresaguet construction. ⇒ total width = 5.4m
  • Only the top course was made with a cross slope of 1 in 45, and side drains were provided at a slope of 1 in 20.
    
  • Drawbacks –
    • No cross-slope provided to the drain layer other than the top (non-uniform
      distribution of loads)
    • large foundation stones provided at the bottom (Illustration showing slope 1 in 20, slope 1 in 45, 2.7m)

• Telford construction ⇒ total width 9m
  • Crossslope is provided to all layers. Therefore No drainage problem.
    
  • Drawbacks
    • large foundation stones at the bottom (Illustration showing slope 1 in 45)
• Macadam construction ⇒ 9m
  convex shape for ease of drainage
  • The subgrade & top surface were given a crossslope of 1 in 36 to facilitate
    Subgrade drainage.
  • Minimum thk. from edge to centre is 25cm
  • He suggests the material for different layers as per the stress developed
    in each layer. Therefore, large foundation stones are not required.

Water Bound Macadam (WBM) Ip < 6%

• It is a dense & compact course.
• Broken stone used as a base course
• Stone dust is used as a binding material.

Disadvantage

• WBM roads are suitable for low-speed traffic such as iron wheel traffic.
• WBM road produces dust in service.

Note ⇒ Now, a days, bitumen bound macadam road is used.

Recommendation by the Jaykar committee [1927]

• Road development should be considered as
  • Road development should be considered as a National interest
  • Extra tax should be levied on petrol, diesel for Road development [Central Road Fund – 1929]
  • A semi-official technical body should be established for technical development.
    • IRC -Indian Road Congress – 1934
  • Motor Vehicle Act – 1939
  • A research organisation should be established to carry out the Research & development work.
    • [Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) – 1950]
  • preference for long-term planning (20 years)

• Note ⇒
  • National highway Act – 1956
  • Highway Research board – 1973

Length calculation as per the 3rd 20-year plan

1. Total length of Road = 4.17 × {No. of towns & villages}
   or
   Road density × Area
2. Length \:of \:N.H = \frac{Area \:of \:state}{50} ,
3. Length \:of \:S.H = \frac{Area \:of \:state }{25}
   or
   62.4 × No. of towns – (length of NH)     
4. Length \:of \:MDR = \frac{Area \:of \:state }{12.5} ,
5. Length of O.D.R. and V.R (Rural Road) = [Total length of-length of (NH+SH+MDR) road]

Here is the text written on the photo:

• Alignment – centre line of highway
  • Alignment should be
    • short
    • safe
    • economical (cutting = filling)
    • Easy

Stages of highway engineering survey

• Map study
  • In this stage, topographical maps are used.
  •   ii) Alignment should avoid river, valley, pond lake.

• Reconnaissance survey
  • It is done by visiting at site location.
  • Collect general characteristics of an area with a simple instrument.
    (traffic survey, nature of soil, material survey)
  • Decide on the alternative routes.

• Preliminary survey
  • Collects physical characteristics and details of topography.
  • “The soil survey can be carried out. Roughly cut depth 1 to 3m”
  • Compare the different proposals using diff. methods.

• Detailed survey
  • The main objective is to be carried out the detailed survey along route.
  • The final selected route is put on paper & details are worked out.

• Final survey
  • DPR (Detailed project report) is prepared.
  • Design, plan, material estimation, cost estimation, specification, bridge site, etc.

History of Road Construction and Highway Planning in India

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