Design Requirements of Highways
Design Requirements of Highways
Design Requirements of Highways
of Highways
Superelevation
Design Volume
Number of Lanes
Superelevation
O Superelevation or banking is necessary to counteract
the centrifugal force that is acting on the vehicle.
The value of maximum superelevation e may range
from 6 percent to 12 percent. Depending on the
terrain of the area where the highways will traverse,
superelevation can be attained by any of the
following methods:
A. Pavement revolved about the centreline
B. Pavement revolved about the inner edge
of the pavement
C. Pavement revolved about the outside
edge
Design Volume
O The 30th highest peak hour volume has been found
to be the most reasonable hourly volume that
provides the best result. Another characteristic of this
30th hourly volume is that its value as a percentage
of AADT does not vary much over the years.
Depending on the type of highways, the value of K
may range from 7 percent to 15 percent.
O It is necessary to consider the direction of heavier
flow for design. The directional distribution D, is
defined as the percentage of the heavier volume
over the total highway volume. This directional
distribution is relevant only when designing or
analyzing highways with two or more lanes in one
direction. In the case of two-lane, two-way
highways, the heavier movement will tend to use the
other direction for overtaking. For three-lane, two-
way highways, the heavier movement will tend to
occupy the extra third lane.
Given the AADT, the design hourly volume is computed as
follows:
DDHV = AADT*K*D (for multilane highways)
or
DHV = AADT*K (for 2-lane or 3-lane, 2-way
highways)
where DDHV – directional design hour volume
DHV – design hourly volume
AADT – average annual daily traffic
K – proportion of daily traffic occurring during peak
hour, expressed as a decimal
D – proportion of peak-hour traffic travelling in the
peak direction, expressed as a decimal
Number of Lanes
O The procedure may follow a trial and error one.
Initially the number of lanes is assumed. With this
assumption, the corresponding capacity is obtained
from lookup tables. If the desired level of service is
known, then its corresponding volume/capacity ratio
will be known. This v/c ratio should be greater than
the value of the ratio of the design hourly volume
over the estimated capacity.
Number of Lanes
O If the inequality is satisfied, then the assumed
number of lanes is okay; otherwise it is modified
depending on the result of the initial computations.
In some cases, correction factors are applied that
would reduce the capacity if some substandard
values (width of lane, presence of gradient, etc.)
deviate from the ideal ones.
Guide on basic capacity for various road types
Lane capacities for multilane highways
O If the traffic volume provided is in mixed type,
passenger car equivalent factors (PCEFs) have to be
applied to obtain the volume pcu. Also, the procedure
discussed in the PHPM (which was used in the previous
example) is slightly different from the procedure in the
US HCM. Both methods have capacities in pcu but in
the PHPM, the design volume in mixed vehicles is
converted to pcu for the calculation of v/c ration while
in the US HCM, mixed vehicles are retained but the
value of capacity is modified or converted to mixed
vehicles by applying reduction factor due to heavy
vehicles. The v/c ratio, therefore, is computed based on
volume and capacity having the same unit of mixed
vehicles.