Km Of Highway Research Articles

The Economic Cost of Civil Conflict inTurkey

The article seeks to estimate the economic costs that Turkey has incurred in the low-level warfare with the Kurdish separatists since 1984. These costs can be divided into direct costs, which are those that are immediately attributable to the conflict, and indirect costs which are its by-products such as forgone investment, the loss of human capital, capital flight and migration. It is estimated that, until the end of 2005, the total cost was $88.1 billion of which $54.2 billion was direct and $33.9 billion indirect cost. These are not unsubstantial sums for a developing economy. Just with the resources expended directly, Turkey could have finished its historically most ambitious development project, the Southeastern Anatolia project, or it could have built 6,000km of motorways which could criss-cross the country more than twice.

Design Solutions for Widening the A1-A9-A14 Italian Highways

In Italy the major part of the national highway system is entrusted to the Autostrade Company which has to manage about 3400 km of highways, comprising a total of about 3000 bridges. Since the first highways were built in the sixties, many of them are no longer adequate to meet the current functional and safety standards. In order to answer the continuously increasing demands due to the high volume of traffic flow, and to comply with the new national regulations, the company and its design company, are widely involved in planning the widening and strengthening of a great part of the highway network. In this complex context, they chose to define a unitary approach as regards the most appropriate criteria for widening and rehabilitating interventions, aimed to represent an important reference for all the designers involved in the design activities. Basically, the widening intervention consists of an enlargement of both superstructure and supports in continuity with the existing parts. The widening portion is rigidly connected to the existing one in order to ensure a strong cooperation in resisting external forces. In particular, the design of the widening portion is addressed by the concept that this kind of intervention is a part of the strengthening strategy. In fact, by accurately designing the structural members of the widening portion with the objective of uniform distribution of all design forces, the overall performance of the construction can be improved. When the old structure did not present any severe deficiency, the beneficial effects of the widening intervention can be shown to be enough for ensuring the satisfaction of safety requirements in both static and seismic conditions. More frequently, however, a more stringent upgrading of the structural performance is needed by focussing the attention on the deficiencies emerging during seismic events. In this paper, after a brief overview on the basic widening criteria, many representative case studies are presented by describing the adopted widening intervention as well as the additional strengthening interventions.

Heathrow Terminal 5: twin rivers diversion

Moving two rivers from the middle of the Terminal 5 project site at London's Heathrow airport to a new alignment around the western airport perimeter was a critical and highly environmentally sensitive sub-project of the T5 programme. The rivers diversion had to be completed before the original river structures could be demolished to enable continuation of the main terminal development. As described in this paper, the £45 million diversion project included the creation of two 3 km long river channels, phased realignment of 3 km of highway and landscape works to the western boundary of Heathrow.

Heathrow Terminal 5: twin rivers diversion

Moving two rivers from the middle of the Terminal 5 project site at London's Heathrow airport to a new alignment around the western airport perimeter was a critical and highly environmentally sensitive sub-project of the T5 programme. The rivers diversion had to be completed before the original river structures could be demolished to enable continuation of the main terminal development. As described in this paper, the £45 million diversion project included the creation of two 3 km long river channels, phased realignment of 3 km of highway and landscape works to the western boundary of Heathrow.

Response of carnivores to existing highway culverts and underpasses: implications for road planning and mitigation

Roads with high traffic volumes are a source of animal mortality, can disrupt normal animal movements and dispersal, and may represent a potentially serious threat to wildlife population stability and viability. Retrofitting existing structures built for other purposes (e.g., drainage culverts or small below-grade access roads) to facilitate wildlife crossing by animals and to reduce mortality may be expensive if modifications to the existing structures themselves were involved. However, the environmental context surrounding these structures may influence the willingness of animals to cross, and management of some of these attributes may enhance the attractiveness of these structures. Culverts and underpasses are two common structures along roads in Portugal. We quantified the response of small and medium-sized carnivores to the presence of both types of existing passages by determining: (1) frequency of use; (2) whether use differed by type of passage, and if so; (3) by examining if associated environmental attributes might explain the differences observed. We surveyed 57 different passages along 252 km of highway with a total sampling effort of 2,330 passage trap-days. The mean passage rate for carnivores combined was 0.7 complete passages per crossing structure per day. Crossings by weasel, polecat, otter, and wildcat were infrequent or absent. Red fox, badger, genet and Egyptian mongoose used the crossing structures regularly and without obvious preference; stone marten preferred underpasses. Regression analyses showed the frequency of use by carnivores varied with structural, landscape, road-related features, and human disturbance with 17 of 26 (65%) attributes being significant. Larger passages with vegetation close to the passage entrances, favorable habitat in the surrounding area, and low disturbance by humans were important key features to regular use by the guild of species studied. Mitigation planning in areas with ecological significance for carnivores will be beneficial. Structural attributes and human disturbances are more difficult or expensive to change, even though related significantly to crossing use. Management of vegetation at passage entrances and restricting human use near passages in carnivore suitable areas may substantially improve crossing attractiveness for the guild of carnivore species.

Human Influences on Wildfire in Alaska from 1988 through 2005: An Analysis of the Spatial Patterns of Human Impacts

AbstractBoreal ecosystems in Alaska are responding to climate change in many ways, including changes in the fire regime. While large-scale wildfires are an essential part of the boreal forest ecosystem, humans are changing fire regimes through ignition and suppression. The authors analyzed the impact humans have on fire ignitions and relative area burned with distance into the forest from human access points such as settlements, highways, and major rivers in Alaska from 1988 to 2005. Additionally, a fire prediction model was created to identify drivers for lightning fires in the boreal forest. Human presence increases the number of ignitions near settlements, roads, and rivers and appears to reduce the area burned within 30–40 km of villages and rivers. In contrast to fires near roads and rivers, human presence may somewhat increase the area burned within 30–40 km of highways. The fire prediction model indicated that the probability of fire increases as distance from human settlements increases. In contrast, the model indicated that the probability of fire decreases as distance from roads increases and that the probability of fire in relation to distance from rivers depends on the year of analysis. While the ecological consequences of these human impacts are still unclear, this research shows that human influences on fire regime clearly affect the pattern of fire within 40 km of settlements, which is an area that represents 31% of interior Alaska. Future research should focus on more completely understanding the role of human presence in the suppression of wildfires in interior Alaska.

Traffic Volume Alters Elk Distribution and Highway Crossings in Arizona

ABSTRACT We used 38,709 fixes collected from December 2003 through June 2006 from 44 elk (Cervus elaphus) fitted with Global Positioning System collars and hourly traffic data recorded along 27 km of highway in central Arizona, USA, to determine how traffic volume affected elk distribution and highway crossings. The probability of elk occurring near the highway decreased with increasing traffic volume, indicating that elk used habitat near the highway primarily when traffic volumes were low (<100 vehicles/hr). We used multiple logistic regression followed by model selection using Akaike's Information Criterion to identify factors influencing probability of elk crossings. We found that increasing traffic rates reduced the overall probability of highway crossing, but this effect depended on both season and the proximity of riparian meadow habitat. Elk crossed highways at higher traffic volumes when accessing high quality foraging areas. Our results indicate that 1) managers assessing habitat quality for elk in areas with high traffic‐volume highways should consider that habitat near highways may be utilized at low traffic volumes, 2) in areas where highways potentially act as barriers to elk movement, increasing traffic volume decreases the probability of highway crossings, but the magnitude of this effect depends on both season and proximity of important resources, and 3) because some highway crossings still occurred at the high traffic volumes we recorded, increasing traffic alone will not prevent elk‐vehicle collisions. Managers concerned with elk‐vehicle collisions could increase the effectiveness of wildlife crossing structures by placing them near important resources, such as riparian meadow habitat.

Reconstruction of Masonry Structures during the Widening of the Federal Motorways in the New German Countries

The German Unity Traffic Program includes seven projects in the New German Countries with about 2000 km of motorway. Four of these projects are completely new motorways, the other three projects consist of the widening of existing motorways, which were built between 1934 and 1939, and which were left without much alteration and maintenance until the change of government in 1989. In most sections these three motorways have been and will be widened from 24 m to 37 m, combined with a redevelopment of the lines, gradients and junctions. However, often the new location and geometry are not completely different from the old ones, and in these cases the preservation of existing bridges is an option to be considered. The old bridges were deficient in many different areas. Nevertheless, in several cases investigations succeeded in working out solutions with affordable rehabilitation actions. In most cases these were structures of historic engineering value or with a special presence as a landmark. The examples include the reconstruction of large natural stone piers for the use of the two new carriageways and the widening of a multi-span stone masonry arch bridge for the use of one carriageway. Furthermore, the preservation of a large masonry arch overpass by the construction of an underpinning structure is described.

Network-Level Performance Measures for Low-Volume Highways in Alberta, Canada

The province of Alberta is responsible for 30,740 km of highway, of which 4,320 km is gravel surfaced. Approximately 8,750 km (28.5%) carries traffic volumes of fewer than 400 vehicles per day. The objectives of this study are to outline network-level performance measures for highways in Alberta and to ensure that they are effective for managing low-volume highways. The performance measures used relate primarily to physical condition and functional adequacy. In 2002 these measures were studied as part of a joint project with the University of Calgary in an attempt to make them more budget sensitive. Criteria were determined and subsequently adopted by Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation. Subsequent to that, a study was undertaken to determine optimal levels for these measures. These optimal measures would be used to set desired future performance targets. The results showed that on the order of 5% of the highways should remain in poor condition and should not be part of the backlog to be corrected. It was at first thought that the majority of these highways would be low-volume roads, but this did not prove to be true, primarily because of the younger age of these roads. The study also examines the cost-effectiveness of projects to pave low-volume gravel roads in comparison with other projects in the program. Cost-effectiveness is defined as agency cost per user per kilometer over a 20-year life-cycle. In conclusion, a future direction is suggested for the department to follow with respect to its low-volume highway improvements.

Vision 2030: transport visions for strategic highways

This paper reports work done three years ago for the Highways Agency in England to stimulate long-term thinking about how to develop and operate the strategic highway network in the UK. The effects of road traffic are becoming a critical problem throughout the world, and without some radical solutions the situation is forecast to get worse. Problems such as traffic congestion, global warming and how to achieve sustainability are politically sensitive yet require positive action. Innovative thinking is needed now to develop solutions and actions that are good for the long term. The Highways Agency in its role as network operator is responsible for managing, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England—over 8000 km of motorways and trunk roads. In a bid to look beyond the usual 5–10 year planning cycle, the Highways Agency commissioned the Vision 2030 Project. Visioning techniques and innovative thinking were used to develop several possible scenarios and propositions for the long-term future of inter-urban transport. These transport visions have influenced the Highways Agency in developing suitable action plans to achieve the desired levels of service for users of the strategic road network, against a changing and challenging background.

Vision 2030: transport visions for strategic highways

This paper reports work done three years ago for the Highways Agency in England to stimulate long-term thinking about how to develop and operate the strategic highway network in the UK. The effects of road traffic are becoming a critical problem throughout the world, and without some radical solutions the situation is forecast to get worse. Problems such as traffic congestion, global warming and how to achieve sustainability are politically sensitive yet require positive action. Innovative thinking is needed now to develop solutions and actions that are good for the long term. The Highways Agency in its role as network operator is responsible for managing, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England—over 8000 km of motorways and trunk roads. In a bid to look beyond the usual 5–10 year planning cycle, the Highways Agency commissioned the Vision 2030 Project. Visioning techniques and innovative thinking were used to develop several possible scenarios and propositions for the long-term future of inter-urban transport. These transport visions have influenced the Highways Agency in developing suitable action plans to achieve the desired levels of service for users of the strategic road network, against a changing and challenging background.

Simulating the response of land‐cover changes to road paving and governance along a major Amazon highway: the Santarém–Cuiabá corridor

AbstractThe spatial distribution of human activities in forest frontier regions is strongly influenced by transportation infrastructure. With the planned paving of 6000 km of highway in the Amazon Basin, agricultural frontier expansion will follow, triggering potentially large changes in the location and rate of deforestation. We developed a land‐cover change simulation model that is responsive to road paving and policy intervention scenarios for the BR‐163 highway in central Amazonia. This corridor links the cities of Cuiabá, in central Brazil, and Santarém, on the southern margin of the Amazon River. It connects important soybean production regions and burgeoning population centers in Mato Grosso State with the international port of Santarém, but 1000 km of this road are still not paved. It is within this context that the Brazilian government has prioritized the paving of this road to turn it into a major soybean exportation facility. The model assesses the impacts of this road paving within four scenarios: two population scenarios (high and moderate growth) and two policy intervention scenarios. In the ‘business‐as‐usual’ policy scenario, the responses of deforestation and land abandonment to road paving are estimated based on historical rates of Amazon regions that had a major road paved. In the ‘governance’ scenario, several plausible improvements in the enforcement of environmental regulations, support for sustainable land‐use systems, and local institutional capacity are invoked to modify the historical rates. Model inputs include data collected during expeditions and through participatory mapping exercises conducted with agents from four major frontier types along the road. The model has two components. A scenario‐generating submodel is coupled to a landscape dynamics simulator, ‘DINAMICA’, which spatially allocates the land‐cover transitions using a GIS database. The model was run for 30 years, divided into annual time steps. It predicted more than twice as much deforestation along the corridor in business‐as‐usual vs. governance scenarios. The model demonstrates how field data gathered along a 1000 km corridor can be used to develop plausible scenarios of future land‐cover change trajectories that are relevant to both global change science and the decision‐making process of governments and civil society in an important rainforest region.

Occurrence of Pennisetum polystachion ssp. setosum on the roadside verges and in some plantation crops of southern Thailand

The level of Pennisetum infestation at every 500 m in the roadside verges was investigated along approximately 710 km of highway and regional roads in Songkhla, Phattalung, Trang and Krabi provinces from a moving car traveling at about 50 km/h (Fig. 1). At survey points, approximately 10 m ¥ 5 m on the roadside verges, levels of the occurrence of Pennisetum were visually estimated using the sociability grades of Braun-Blanquet in which the gregarious habits of plants were classified into five classes (Numata 1982). The use of land adjacent to the survey points was recorded at the same time. In the survey, 2 m-high Pennisetum had conspicuous yellow panicles and was easy to recognize even from the moving car. This survey was conducted from August to December in 1996, during the rainy season.

Cement Stabilization Mixed in Place for Rural Road Reconstruction in Austria

The Austrian state territory, with a total area of about 84,000 km2, is served by a road network of approximately 200,000 km, including about 35,000 km of highways, expressways, and federal and provincial roads. The balance of about 165,000 km are roads at the local community level and finally rural roads (approximately 100,000 km) outside village boundaries. In the future, new roads will be built principally to finalize development plans. The maintenance of the Austrian rural road network has been the major task of road agencies over the last 10 years and will be of significant importance in the future. In view of the growing need for economical methods for rural road reconstruction, the use of mixed-in-place cement stabilization with existing pavement materials (recycling of milled material) is considered to be an economical and resource-saving approach. Practical experience was gained with the preparatory work required (inspection of the existing pavement and suitability testing) and the different stages of construction work. The resulting increase of the load-bearing capacity has been proven by measurement. Additional measurements will be carried out in the future (Benkelman beam, falling weight deflectometer). Application conditions and especially limitations were evaluated. A simple comparison of costs shows that the economic benefit of the presented method depends highly on local conditions, such as the costs of material, transportation, and materials deposit.

Heavy Truck Dynamic Rollover: Effect of Load Distribution, Cargo Type, and Road Design Characteristics

The dynamic response of a five-axle tractor–trailer unit carrying loads of various weights was evaluated under actual operating conditions as the vehicle traveled along roadway curves with various radii. A data acquisition system (DAS) was designed and developed to record information for a vehicle moving at highway speeds. The DAS used sensors interfaced to a central processing unit. The test runs were performed over a total of 1,110 km of highway under three load configurations: empty, loaded with less than the truck load, and loaded with bottled spring water packed in boxes. Data on lateral, longitudinal, and vertical accelerations; steering activity; vehicle speed; and roll angle of the trailer were recorded. It was found that in most cases the average level of lateral acceleration exhibited on both the tractor and the trailer exceeded expected values calculated for the curves on the basis of geometric design characteristics. Comparisons of actual results with theoretical considerations confirmed this observation. Analyses of field data indicated that under certain motion and load conditions, the occasional peak lateral acceleration values generated were in the vicinity of rollover threshold values estimated for the instrumented vehicle. The results also showed that although the vehicle traveled at or below the posted speed limit in the majority of cases, lateral accelerations recorded for the trailer exceeded expected lateral accelerations under all load configurations. This suggests the need to consider establishing speed limits on curves that take into consideration the different responses of heavy trucks compared with those of smaller and lighter vehicles.

Arguing Tropical Forest Conservation: People versus Parks

As Terborgh (this issue) points out, the controversy that is the topic of this exchange is not parks. We all agree that nature reserves with minimal human influence are an important component of any conservation strategy in any country. Rather, the point of controversy is how best to achieve a much broader, more comprehensive conservation of nature in a region such as Amazonia, where four-fifths of the forest are still standing. In this setting, it is counterproductive to insist that the only nature worth preserving is pristine, with no human influence, as Terborgh (this issue) and Redford & Sanderson (this issue) seem to be saying. To pursue this narrow interpretation of nature conservation is to ignore the scale and timing of human threats to this forest. By the end of the 1997-1998 El Ninio episode, for example, 1.5 million km2 of Amazon forest-a third of the forest remaining in Amazonia-was desiccated to the point of flammability. Most of the forest didn't catch fire because it is far from the agricultural frontier. With the paving of >4000 km of highway into the core region of Amazonia, large-scale forest burning will follow, as will 100,000-180,000 km2 of additional deforestation (Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental na Amazonia and Instituto Socioambiental 2000; Nepstad et al. 2000). This scale of threat to Amazonia and other large tropical forest formations must frame our approach to conservation. Even if, for the sake of ar-

Road Safety Benefits of Liquid Anti-Icing Strategies and Agents: Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada

The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) formed a partnership with the city of Kamloops in September 1996 to undertake a 2-year project to test the effectiveness of liquid anti-icers in preventing motor vehicle accidents compared with traditional deicing techniques. ICBC provided $131,000 in financing to Kamloops over the 2 years. Costs included the conversion of city trucks for liquid dispensing, purchasing of liquid magnesium chloride (Freezgard GSL), and updated road weather information systems. G. D. Hamilton and Associates, an engineering and consulting firm in Vancouver, British Columbia, evaluated the safety benefits achieved during the 2 years. The results of the analysis show up to a 74 percent reduction in overall slush, snow, and ice collisions and associated insurance claims. In the previous 3 years, traditional deicing methods were used. The study area for 1996–1997 consisted of 46 km of arterial streets and 38 km of highways within the city of Kamloops. In the second year, 1997–1998, 148 km of arterial and collector roads were studied. However, the anti-icing agent was not applied to the highways in the second year, and the analysis further showed an increase of 84 percent in the overall slush, snow, and ice collisions and resulting claims. The ICBC Research Department evaluated accident claims reported to the Kamloops Claims Office for winter 1997–1998. The results of the analysis show a 6 percent reduction in overall claims on relevant snow days for an estimated minimum savings of $281,868.00 to ICBC for that year. A similar study was completed in 1998–1999 and showed an 8 percent reduction in overall claims on relevant snow days. For the 3-year program, 285 fewer claims were filed, an average of 95 fewer claims per year.

Study of Lead Pollution by Edxrf Analysis

Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis is applied to determine lead pollution from various locations near the highway of Ankara - Istanbul. In this proposed study, a complete optimization including sampling, homogeneity, particle size, critical thickness, measurement geometry for analysis of soils and plants is carried out. It is observed the contribution of the motor transport, along the 25 km of highway, to the lead pollution is very considerable depending on heavy traffic.

Conversion of Existing Motorway Equipment Meeting New Objectives

Dutch authorities were faced with an immense problem, as changes in the motorway control system would mean that all existing equipment on 400 km of motorways would have to be replaced or changed. At the same time it was required that several new applications would be integrated with this motorway control system. To make things even worse, a new communication standard was adopted for road-side communication. The paper describes the steps taken to ensure a safe way of tackling all these problems.

Accident prediction models for roads with minor junctions

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a method for predicting expected accidents on main roads with minor junctions where traffic counts on the minor approaches are not available. The study was based on data for some 3800 km of highway in the U.K. including more than 5000 minor junctions. The highways consisted of both single and dual-carriageway roads in urban and rural areas. Generalized linear modelling was used to develop regression estimates of expected accidents for six highway categories and an empirical Bayes procedure was used to improve these estimates by combining them with accident counts. Accidents on highway sections were shown to be a non-linear function of exposure and minor junction frequency. For the purposes of estimating expected accidents, while the regression model estimates were shown to be preferable to accident counts, the best results were obtained using the empirical Bayes method. The latter was the only method that produced unbiased estimates of expected accidents for high-risk sites.