Evaluation of The Highway Design Speed Determination Process Using Case Studies (Reclassifying Functions and Terrain Types)

Currently, highway design speed is determined by considering highway function, area type, and terrain type. Sometime it is pointed out that determining a reasonable design speed which is both efficient and safe is not an easy task and that Practicing engineers often select an unsuitable design speed on purpose, capitalizing on some ambiguous and discretionary expressions in describing the highway design speed. This undesirable Problem is arising mostly due to the fact, that the current geometric design standard fails to include rolling terrain type and can not reflect the whole characteristics of land use patterns adjacent to the design highway route. A recent research was Published considering this problem and it attempted to improve the highway design speed determining process. In this research Project, tn see the effects of this recently developed procedure, a new and reduced design speed was calculated based on the new Procedure and subsequently another highway design route was selected. The travel time. construction cost. and the expected degree of safety associated with the new route were assessed to be compared with the ones with the existing procedure. As a result. it was found that the new procedure was successful in reflecting the localities such as terrain type and area type into better determining highway design speed, eliminating much of highway engineers' discretion when applying engineering judgments. Also the new Procedure is keen to produce a more economical highway project. In other words, despite of producing reduced amount of user benefits accrued, in the new highway route, the construction cost has been cut significantly leading to higher values in B/C. NPV, and IRR. Also EMME-II output, which Provided the link assigned volumes, rendered only a slightly reduced Levels of Service along surrounding links in the study network. This reduction was believed to occur because of lower design speed and it had been expected from the beginning.