Sustainable Approach for Geometric Design of Highway using OpenRoads: a Case Study of NH-05

Roads are said to be the backbone of the development of any nation. In the developing nations like India, it is the primary mode of transportation, which makes its significance much higher. Highway geometric alignment is an important aspect for maintaining road safety and the effective movement of traffic on any road. Highway geometry features are meant to be picked, sized, and placed in order to achieve various design goals including sight distance, car stability, driver convenience, drainage, economic growth, and aesthetic qualities. Due to the rapid increase in the growth of traffic in the past few years, it has become important to ensure safe design alignment to serve the future needs efficiently and economically. A case study of NH-05 is used in the present work to design the existing highway to improve its geometric features by considering future forecasted traffic and covering all safety measures given by the Indian Road Congress (IRC) recommendations. The OpenRoads software was used as a designing tool, and all designs were made keeping the design speed at 50 kmph. The roadway width has been decided to be 13.0 m, with the carriageway width set at 7.5 m and the width of the shoulder at 2.4 m. The cross-slope or camber has been determined to be 2.4% for bituminous surfaces and 3.6% for earthen surfaces, with a maximum super-elevation of 7%. Thus the results obtained can be used to solve the traffic congestion problems, particularly due to the high traffic volume, and enhance road safety.