Road Alignment - Requirement of Ideal Road Alignment

 Road Alignment

The route along which the center line of a road is located in the plan or on the ground is termed as road alignment.   

    The centre line of a road is located at site before its actual consruction. The cost of construction, maintenance, safety and easy in travel etc. depends much upon the alignment of road. Oncea road is aligned and consructed, it is very difficult to change its alignment. Therefore, road alignment should becarefully selected and located.

Requirement Of An Ideal Road Alignment  :

The  following are the basic requirement of an ideal alignment between two terminal stations :

(a) Short

(b) Easy

(c) Safe

(d) Economical

(e) Utility

(a) Short : It is desirable to have a shortest alignment between two terminal stations. Though there may be several practical considerations which would cause deviations from the shortest path.

(b) Easy : The alignment should be such that it is easy to construct and maintain. Also the alignment should be easy for the operations of vehicles with flat gradient and smooth curves.

(c) Safe : The alignment should be safe enough for construction and maintenance. It should have stable natural hill slopes, embankments and foundations. Also it should be safe for the traffic operation with safe geometric features like gradients, curves, sight distance etc.

(d) Economical : The alignment should be such that the total life cycle cost i.e. sum of the initial cost, maintenance cost and vehicles operation cost is lowest.

(e) Utility : The alignment should be such that it would offer maximum utility by serving maximum population per unit length of road.