Transportation System Engineering 1 , 61360

Chapter 3
Highway Location

AN-NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

NABLUS, PALESTINE

Wael K. M. ALHAJYASEEN

TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ENGINEERING 1 , 61360

3.1 The highway design process

3.2 Design controls and criteria

3.3 Highway location

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3.1 The highway design
process

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* Refer to the Multimedia CD of the course 4
• Considering Laws and Regulations
– Laws, regulations, and policies are intended to ensure that the
resulting facility is:
• safe and economical,
• its environmental impacts are reasonable,
• the interests of different political constituencies are adequately
represented.
– Enabling legislation for transportation funding which often
establishes minimum design standards
• Highway Planning.
• Traffic Design
• Locations
• Physical Design
– Major step
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3.2 Design controls and
criteria

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• Highway design is based on several design standards
and controls which in turn depend:
– on the selection of the appropriate set of geometric design
standards.
• The characteristics of the highway should be
considered in selecting the geometric design standards..

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• Factors influencing highway design:
– Highway Functional Classification
– Traffic Volume (Hourly Traffic)
– Design Speed
– Design Vehicle
– Cross section of the highway
– Presence of heavy vehicles
– Topography of the area
– Level of Service LOS
– Available fund
– Safety, social and environmental factors

* Refer to the Multimedia CD of the course 8

• Highway Functional Classification
– Highways are classified according to their respective functions
in terms of the character of the service they are providing.
– They are primarily described as rural or urban roads
– They are different in terms of land use and population density
– 3500~5000 people is urban area
– Urbanized area: with population more than 50000
– Small urban area: 5000~50000

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• Highway Functional Classification

– Highways are categorized into:

• Principal Arterials
–Freeways have unique geometric criteria that
requires special design considerations
• Minor Arterials
• Major Collectors
• Minor Collectors
• Local roads and streets

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• Highway Functional Classification
1. Functional system of urban roads
a. Urban principal arterial system: They serve the major
activity centers of the urban area and mainly of the highest-
traffic-volume corridors.
– Carry a high proportion of vehicle-
kilometers of travel.
– carry most trip with origin or
destination within the urban area.
– Serves trips that bypass the Central
Business Districts (CBD).

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• Highway Functional Classification
1. Functional system of urban roads
a. Urban principal arterial system: Further classified into:
• Interstate, fully-controlled access and grade separated interchanges
• Expressways, controlled access but may have at-grade interchanges
• Other principal arterials with partial or no access control.
b. Urban Minor Arterial System: interconnects with principal
arterials.
• Serves trips with moderate lengths
• Places more emphasis on land access

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• Highway Functional Classification
1. Functional system of urban roads
c. Urban Collector Street System: The main purpose is to
collect traffic from local streets in residential areas or in
CBDs and convey it to the arterial system.
‒ It usually go through residential areas
‒ It facilitate traffic circulation within residential, commercial, and
industrial areas.
d. Urban Local Streets System: The primary purpose to
provide access to neighboring and to the collector streets.
‒ Through traffic is deliberately discouraged on these streets.

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• Highway Functional Classification
2. Functional system of rural roads
a. Rural Principal Arterial System: consist of a network of
highways that serve most of the intercity trips and a
substantial amount of intra-regional trips.
– trips between urbanized areas
– High percentage of the trips between
small urban areas

d. Rural Minor Arterial System :

Supports the principal arterials.
– Travel speed is relatively high with
minimum interference to through
movements.
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• Highway Functional Classification
2. Functional system of rural roads
c. Rural Major Collector System: carry traffic primarily to
and from county seats and large cities that are not
directly served by the arterial system.
d. Rural Minor Collector System : Routes that collect traffic
from local roads and convey it to other facilities.
‒ An important function is that they provide linkage
between rural hinterland and locally important traffic
generators such as small communities.
e. Rural Local Road System: These roads serve trips of
relatively short distances and connect adjacent lands with
the collector roads.
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• Traffic Volume
‒ Annual Average daily traffic (AADT) represents the total
traffic for a year divided by 365, or the average traffic volume
per day
‒ The design hourly volume (DHV) is usually the 30th
highest hourly volume for the design year, commonly 20
years from the time of construction completion.
‒ For situations involving high seasonal fluctuations in ADT,
some adjustment may be appropriate

DHV  ADT  k
‒ K factor: for rural highways, K-factors generally range
from 12 to 18 percent. For urban facilities, K- factors are
typically somewhat lower, ranging from 8 to 12 percent.
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– The 30th highest hourly volume
is therefore usually selected as
DHV
– It is uneconomical to select a
greater DHV
– Experience has also shown that
the 30th highest hourly volume
as a percentage of ADT varies
only slightly from year to year,
even when significant changes
of ADT occur.

Figure 15.3 Relationship between

Peak Hour and Annual Average Daily
Traffic on Rural Highways
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• Design Speed
‒ The selected speed to determine the various geometric
features of the roadway.
‒ After selecting this value, it becomes the maximum safe
speed to can be maintained.
‒ Design speed depends on:
‒ Functional classification of the highway,
‒ Land use of the adjacent area,
‒ Topography of the area.

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• Design Speed
‒ For highway design, topography is generally classified
into:
‒ Level: is relatively flat. Horizontal and vertical sight
distances are generally long or can be achieved without
much construction difficulty or major expense.
‒ Rolling: has natural slopes that often rise above and fall
below the highway grade with occasional steep slopes.
‒ Mountainous: has sudden changes in ground elevation in
both the longitudinal and transverse directions,
 requires frequent hillside excavations to achieve
acceptable horizontal and vertical alignments.

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 Level Terrain
Rolling Terrain Mountainous Terrain

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• Design Speed
‒ should be consistent with the speed that motorists will
expect to drive.
‒ In general, highways with longer average trips should be
designed for higher speeds.

A design speed is selected to achieve a desired level

of operation and safety on the highway. It is one of
the first parameters selected in the design process
because of its influence on other design variables.

Highways: 90~120 Km/hr Collectors: 30~100 km/hr

Arterials: 50~100
T
km/hr
S
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Local:
ENGINEERING
30~80 km/hr
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Table 15.1 Minimum Design Speeds for Rural
Collector Roads

Design elements show no significant difference

when increments are less than 10 km/hr.
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Table 15.2 Minimum Design Speeds for Various Functional
Classification
• Design Vehicle
‒ The design vehicle is that vehicle selected to represent all
vehicles on the highway.
‒ The vehicle type selected as the design vehicle is the
largest that is likely to use the highway..
‒ Its weight, dimensions, and operating characteristics will
be used to establish the geometric standards of the
highway.

Parking lot in shopping center Passenger Car

Intersections at local streets and park roads, Single Unit Truck

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3.3 Highway Location

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• Principles of Highway Location
‒ roadway elements such as curvature and grade must
blend with each other to produce a system that
provides easy traffic flow at the design capacity.
 while meeting design criteria and safety standards

‒ The highway should also cause a

minimal disruption to:
 Environmentally sensitive areas
 Historic and archeological sites
 Other land-use activities.

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• Principles of Highway Location
‒ The highway location process involve 4-phases:
1. Office study of existing information
2. Reconnaissance survey
3. Preliminary location survey
4. Final location survey

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1. Office study of existing information
 The examination of all available data of the area in
which the road is to be constructed.
 Carried out in the office prior to any field or
photogrammetric investigation.

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 Data should be obtained on the following
characteristics of the area:
‒ Engineering: including topography, geology, climate, and
traffic volumes.
‒ Social and demographic: including land use and zoning
patterns.
‒ Environmental: types of wildlife; location of recreational,
historic, and effects of air, noise, and water pollution.
‒ Economic: including unit costs for construction.

At the completion of this phase of the study,

the engineer will able to select the general
areas through which the highway can traverse.
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2. Reconnaissance survey
 to identify several feasible routes, each within a band
of a limited width of a few hundred meter.
 Aerial photography is widely used to obtain the
required information in rural roads.
• Feasible routes are identified by a
stereoscopic examination of the aerial
photographs, taking into consideration:
‒ Terrain and soil conditions
‒ Serviceability of route to industrial
and population areas
‒ Crossing of other transportation
facilities, such as rivers, railroads,
and other highways
‒ Directness of route.
T S E
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2. Reconnaissance survey
 Control points between the start and the end of the
highway are determined for each feasible route.
 The feasible routes identified are then plotted on
photographic base maps.
3. Preliminary location survey
 The positions of the feasible routes are set as closely
as possible by establishing all the control points and
determining preliminary vertical and horizontal
alignments.

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3. Preliminary location survey
Preliminary alignments are used to evaluate:
 Economic Evaluation: determination of the future plan

of investing the resources necessary to construct the

highway.
‒ Benefit-cost ratio
‒ road user costs,
‒ construction maintenance costs,
‒ road use benefits,
‒ any disbenefits, which may include adverse impacts
due to dislocation of families and businesses.

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3. Preliminary location survey
Preliminary alignments are used to evaluate:
 Environmental Evaluation

‒ A highway is therefore an integral part of the local

environment.
 human, plant, and animal communities encompassing social,
physical, natural, and man-made variables.
‒ Sustainable lifestyle of the different communities
‒ The construction of a highway may result in
significant changes in one or more variables
 which may offset the equilibrium and result in significant
adverse effects on the environment.

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3. Preliminary location survey
Preliminary alignments are used to evaluate:
 Environmental Evaluation

‒ Environmental Impact Statement. It should include:

 A detailed description of alternatives.
 The probable environmental impact (positive and negative)
 Short-term impacts and long-term impacts
 Secondary effects, which may be in the form of changes in
the patterns of social and economic activities
 Adverse environmental effects that cannot be avoided if the
project is constructed
 Reversible and irretrievable resources that have been
committed

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4. Final location survey
It is detailed layout of the selected route.
 Environmental Evaluation

 This is usually a trial-and-error process until, in the

designer's opinion, the best alignment is obtained.

 computer-based techniques enables driver's eye view

the alignments of the road.

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• Location of Highways in Urban Areas
‒ Urban areas usually present complex conditions that must
be considered in the highway location process.
‒ Other factors that significantly influence the location of
highways in urban areas include:
• Connection to local streets
• Right-of-way acquisition
• Coordination of the highway system with other
transportation systems
• Adequate provisions for pedestrians

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• Preparation Of Highway Plans
‒ After determining the final location ,it is then necessary to
provide the plans and specifications for the facility.
‒ The plans and specifications are part of the contract
documents and are therefore considered legal documents.
‒ Profile: indicates the natural ground surface and the center
line of the road (Vertical Alignments), with details of vertical
curves.
‒ The horizontal alignment is usually drawn to a scale of
1:1000, sometimes the scale of 1:500 is used to provide
greater detail.
‒ In drawing the vertical alignment, the horizontal scale used
is the same as that of the horizontal alignment, but the
vertical scale is exaggerated five to ten times.
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• Highway Survey Methods
‒ Surveying techniques can be grouped into three general
categories:
‒ Ground surveys
‒ Remote sensing
‒ Computer graphics

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 Chapter 3
Highway Location

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