Highway Development & Planning

Important events in Road development:

>> Roman’s are the pioneers in road construction

At Rome 29 roads were meeting

>>Indian Roads:

• Indus valley civilization (5000BC), towns are planned with Grid Pattern.
• Mouryans (4000 to 2000 BC) Chandra Guptha Mourya constructed 2400 km long road from Pataliputra (patna) to Takshashila (now in Pakistan)
• First British Road: GT road from Calcutta to Delhi

>>Treasagat construction. (Françe) (1716-1796)

>>Metcalf (England) (1718-1810)

>>Telford (1757-1834) construction:

•  Sub grade is kept. horizontal and hence sub grade drainage was nòt proper.
• Heavy foundation stones, to total thickness of the order of 35cm at edge to 41cm at center

>> Macadam construction: (1756 -1856):

• The importance of sub grade draining and compaction was recogonised and cross slope of 1 in 36 was proposed from sub grade level itself.
• The first method based on scientific thinking.
• It was realised that the stresses due to wheal  loads of traffic gets decreased and the lower layers of the pavement and therefore it is not required to provide large boulder and stone or soiling course at the lower layer of the pavement.

Highway development in India (Important events):

Jayakar committee (Indian road development committee)—1927 recommendations:

• Road development to be considered as a national interest.
• An extra tax to be levied on petrol from the road users to develop a road development fund called “Central Road Fund”
• A semi official technical body should be formed to pool the technical know — how and act as advisory body.
• A research organisation should be instituted.

Central Road Fund — (March 1929) (CRF):

• Extra leavy on petrol at the rate of 2.64 paise /liter in 1929.
•  The levy is revised in 1998, on petrol the new cess is Rs. 1/- on petrol and Rs. 0.5/- on diesel.
• 20% of annul revenue is to be retained as a “Central reserve”, and towards administration ,R and D road and bridge projects of special importance. Balance 80% to be allotted to various states.

Indian Roads Congress: (1934)(IRC):

• An offshoot of Jyakar . Committee’s recommendations.
• Publishes Various  codes standardizing the specifications.

Motor vehicle’s act (1939) : Revised in 1977

Nagpur road conference: (1943)

• The first attempt to prepare a coordinated road development program in a planned manner.
• The first 20 years road development plan (1943-1963) popularly known as ‘ ‘Nagpur road plan”
• AIl Run way roads were classified into five categories.(ViZ., : NH,SH,MDR, ODR and VR).
• The target for Nagpur road development plan (1943 -63) was aimed 16km per 100 sq. Km area of the country.
• Recommended gird pattern of road system is star and grid.

Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) —1950:

·         It may be in line with Jayakar Committee’s recommendation. Located in New Delhi.

National Highway Act — 1956:

·         The responsibility of development and Maintenance of National Highways lies with Central Government.

Second road development plan: (1961-81) (Bombay Road Plan)

• The target is 32Km/sq.km area
• Construction of 1600 km express ways.

Highway research board of IRC — 1973

The third twenty year plan: (1981-2001) (Lucknow plan):

• Target 82 km/100 sq. km.
• Expressways 2000 km
• Length of NH = area in Km2 / 50
•  Length of SH = area in Km2 / 25                                                                                                                            or 62.5 x  no. of towns
• Length of MDR = area in Km2/ 12.5                                                                                                                               or 90 x no. of towns

National Highway Authority of India (NHAI)

·         Established in 1988, became operational only in 1995.

·         Responsibility is to develop, maintain and operate the National Highways

·         Under the control of Ministry of Road and Transport and Highways

National Highway Development Program (NHDP)

Prime focus is on developing International standard roads with facilities for uninterrupted flow of traffic with

·         Enhanced safety features

·         Better Riding Surface.

·         Better Road Geometry

·         Better Traffic Management and Noticeable Signage.

·          Divided carriageways and Service roads

·          Grade separators

·          Over bridges and Underpasses

·          Bypasses

Projects under NHDP

• Golden Quadrilateral — (total 5,846 km) connecting Deihi-Koikata-Chennai-Mumbai (already constructed 99.67%) Total cost Rs. 58,000 crore
• North - South & East - West Corridor (total 7,300 Km                                                          North-South Corridor connecting Srinagar (Kashmir) to Kanya kumari (Tamil Nadu) including Salem to Cochin (Kerala) Spur.
• East-West Corridor connecting Siichar (Assam) to Porbandar (Gujarat).
• Port Connectivity & others 1133 km

State Highway Research Laboratories:

•  Highway Research Station, Chennai
• Maharashtra Engineering Institute, Nasik.
• Gujarat Engineering Research Institute, Vadodra

Highway staff Training Institute:

National Institute for Training of Highway Engineers (NITHE) , New Delhi.

National Rural Road Development Agency (NRRDA):

• The programs under this agency: ‘Pradhan Mantri Grain Sadak Yojana’ (PMGSY)
• Aim of this program is to connect villages with a population over 1000 persons through good all-weather roads by 2003 (already achieved) and to connect villages with 500 population by 2007.
• Cost of this program is 60,000 crores

Classification based on location and function: (Rural or non urban)

1. National Highway (NH)

2. State Highway (SH)

3. Major District Roads (MDR)

4. Other District Roads (ODR)

5. Village Roads (VR)

This classification was done in Nagpur road plan

Important National Highways:

NH-1 : Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar

NH-3 : Bombay-Agra

NH-4 : Madras-Banglore-pune

NH-5 : Madras-Calcutta

NH-7 : Varanasi- Kanyakumari :Longest National Highway

NH-9 : Bombay-Pune—Hyderabad Vijayawada

National Highways:

Main frame on which entire road communication is based, Highest specifications.

A National Highway connects state capitals,Industrial tours, Places of strategic importance, neighboring countries etc...

State Highways: Specifications similar to that of NH.

MDR: Roughly to be same specifications of SH.

ODR: Some what lower specifications. However, these roads should be maintained to function in all weathers to carry the traffic. (All weather roads).

VR: Lower specifications

Details of various Road Network in India:                                          Indian road network of 33 lakh km. is second largest in the world and consist of

• Expressways 200 km
• National Highways 70,548 km
• State Highways 1,31,899 km
• Major District Roads 4,67,763 km
• Rural Roads and other roads 26,50,000 km

>>National Highways are less than 2 % of network but carry 40% of total traffic.

>>Number of vehicles has been growing at an average pace of 10.16% per annum over the last five years.

>>Mumbai-Pune Expressway: The Mumbai-Pune Expressway was India’s first limited access expressway of 93 km

>> Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway: This 28 km long expressway Delhi, national Gurgaon, an important satellite city of Delhi. which is a part of the Golden Quadrilateral.

>>Delhi-Noida-Greater Noida Expressway: Two separate expressways provide high-speed connectivity between Delhi, NOIDA and Greater Noida. The DND Flyway was the first expressway built in Delhi.

>>Ahmadabad -Vadodara Expressway: This 95 km long expressway connects the Ahmedabad and Baroda

>> PV Narasimharao Express Flyover: A 11.46 km length, Asia’s first express fly over started in Hyderabad in October 2009

Current Status of traffic:

Passenger: 85% by road, 15% by railways

Freight :70 % by road, 30% by railways

Road Patterns:

• Rectangular or Block Pattern: Adopted in Chandigarh, from traffic operation point this is not considered convenient.
• Star and Grid Pattern : Nagpur road plan formulae were prepared assuming star and Grid pattern. Provides inter communication facilities to each of the villages, towns, district Head Quarters, State Capitals etc. The best example of grid pattern is Chandigarh (Chandigarh is the 1st planned modem city of India designed by the French architect Le Corbusier)
• RadiaI and circular pattern: Connaught place, New Delhi.
• Master Plan: It is the final road development plan for the area under study which may be a district, state or the whole country.

Concept of saturation system (or) Maximum utility system:

• Useful in arriving at the best road system out of the alternative proposals. In this system optimum road length is calculated for the area, based on maximum utility per unit length of road.
• Factors considered are                                                                                                                      (a) Population         (b) Agricultural and Industrial productivity.