chap 1

• Brief History of Roads

  • Early roads with hard surfaces found in Mesopotamia (3,500 BC)
  • Stone surface roads found in Crete
  • Roads constructed by Mayans, Aztecs and Incas in Central/South America
• Purposes of early road systems

  Movement of armies for conquest and defense<|>Transport of food and trade of goods between towns and cities
• Characteristics of Roman Roads


  • Layer of small broken stones
  • Layer of small stones mixed with mortar and compacted
  • Wearing course of massive stone blocks properly set and bedded with cement mortar
• Improvements to road construction by Jerome Tresaguet


  • Improved the crown, drainage, and grade of the road
  • Reduced the depth of broken stones to 25 cm
• Improvements to road construction by Thomas Telford

  • Road foundation course made of stones with 3 inch minimum thickness, 5 inch breadth and 7 inch height
  • Smaller stones driven by mauls on top voids and surfaces trued by breaking projecting points
  • Employed a flat sub-grade, providing slight crown using stones of varying sizes
• Early Saxon Laws


  Imposed 3 mandatory duties: repair roads and bridges, repair castles and garrisons, aid repel invasions
• In early 1900s, transportation in the Philippines depended on trails, waterways, railroad, earth roads and partially graveled roads
• American government initiated development of roadways in the Philippines, introducing the popular Macadam road type
• Over 80,000 new vehicles are added to Philippine roads every year, requiring 400 km of new roads annually just to keep up
• The 1960s-1980s was considered the "automobile age" in the Philippines, with cars becoming a necessity rather than a luxury
• Problems faced by highway planners

  • Financial
  • Political
  • Technical
• Rational Planning


  No longer the objective process based on training and expertise, but rather a political decision
• Inputs involved in highway programming

  • Economic
  • Financial
  • Political and Administrative
• Highway Programming Approaches


  1. Financial resources are either short or long ranged implementation by agencies

  2. Recognition of economic, financial, and political/administrative factors
• Professionals, particularly technical men, seem to have lost confidence in themselves or even the solutions they offer
• Three inseparable sets of inputs involved in highway programming

  • Economic - Deals with the questions of resources
  • Financial - The question of who pays and who spends, how much, and where?
  • Political and Administration - This involves decision making
• Highway programming


  1. Projects are prioritized

  2. Most economically viable projects are selected

  3. Projects that fail on financial or political criteria are abandoned, modified or substituted
• Direct Effects of Highway Construction and its Use

  • Quantifiable market value
  • Non-Quantifiable Non-Market Value
  • Quantifiable Non-Market Value
• Quantifiable market value


  Cost of highways as to planning cost, right of way appropriations, construction costs, maintenance costs, and operating costs<|>Cost benefits to highway users including vehicles operating costs, travel savings time, and motorist's safety
• Non-Quantifiable Non-Market Value


  Cost benefits to highway users including motorists safety, comfort and conversion, and aesthetic from driving viewpoint
• Quantifiable Non-Market Value


  Cost benefits to highway users - Traveling savings time (non-commercial)
• The Planner


  • Provides technical and organizational support
  • Receives input or information on the needs and goals of affected persons group or agencies
  • Incorporates the above for planning and making decision
  • Acts as a clarifier, expediter, conciliator and impartial negotiator
• The Functions of the Planners

  1. Prepare preliminary design, scope of study and the initial work program

  2. Explore alternatives and gather data by contacting representatives of other agencies involved

  3. Conduct detailed analysis and prepare detailed plan for appropriate community interaction

  4. Secure formal ratification from the local officials and document the results
• Good ethics demand that planners should understand that their role is to provide knowledge and unbiased information, not be partisan or emotionally involved
• Most of the country's expenditures for highways and public transport facilities are based on the principle of "Pay as you go"
• Remote Sensing (Photogrammetry)


  The science and art of obtaining measurements by means of photography, based on aerial photographs for engineers working data on locations, planning, geometric design, right of way, traffic studies, drainage, soil classifications and identifications, earthwork measurements, material location, and pavement condition survey
• Maps that can be plotted with photographs and computer record data

  • The highways
  • The drainage
  • Housing
  • Land use and zoning
  • Property
• Urban locations


  Maximum errors in distance are 1 to 5000 and 1 to 10,000 respectively
• Angular triangulation measurement


  Easily obtained by the use of modern theodolites
• Distance measurement


  Carried out by an electronic distant measuring device (EDM) that employ infra red light beams, microwave or laser light
• Photogrammetric technique


  Coupled with digitizer, produces digital terrain models
• What the computer program develops

  • Profiles
  • Cross sections
  • Cut and fill earthwork quantities
  • The motorist view of the road
• What a separate map could be plotted easily

  • The highways
  • The drainage
  • Housing
  • Land use and zoning
  • Property assessment
• Orthophotographs


  Aerial photograph corrected for scale and tilt
• Aerial colored photograph


  Presents a more detailed and precise information on traffic and parking studies, geological conditions, land use, source of materials, surfaces and sub-surface drainage
• Oblique photograph


  Used for special studies particularly, where the ground condition is almost flat or where cliffs are so steep that a black and white photograph could not give sufficient details
• Location of the proposed highway

  1. Early roads started from trails

  2. Movements of people and the use of motor vehicles prompted road agencies to improve road alignment minimizing sharp curves

  3. Road width was standardized and grades were flattened
• New highway locations


  • Blended with curvature grades and other roadway elements to offer comfortable easy driving, free flowing traffic arteries, comply with the rules on safety standards
• Considerations for improving highways

  • Reliable cost estimate
  • Character and hourly distribution of traffic
  • Economic and community benefit factor
  • Availability of funds
• Location surveys in the rural areas

  1. Reconnaissance survey of the entire area between the terminal points

  2. Reconnaissance survey of all feasible routes

  3. Preliminary survey of the best route

  4. Location survey, staking of the right of way, the highway and the structure for construction