Improving Highway Alignment Using Openroads Software

Abstract

Highway alignment is the layout of the centerline of the road on the ground level. An ideal alignment should be safe, economical, short, and comfortable. This paper presents the improved design standards of the existing road of 4.5 km, which is the part of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) project using computational design software (OpenRoads). Drivers’ speed behavior is investigated on the curves using adhesive tape. Stretch of 500 m on the curve is taken in which 400 m is the transition before and after the curve and 100 m is the curve length and the same was done for the other cures. It reviled that the operating speed is constant along the curves with rapid acceleration and deceleration on the tangents/transitions. Various other parameters i.e. traffic volume, horizontal radius, the cross slope is also calculated manually. This paper shows various alignment models of the road, helping in determining a constant design speed by modifying the alignment to straighter sections and minimizing the speed variations along the stretch. The distance also got reduced after the elimination of curves from the actual alignment. This paper also gives the cost estimation of different alignments that are designed and is compared with the actual structure.