Smart Geometric Design of Highways Using HTML Programming for Sustainable and Climate Resilient Cities

Abstract

Conventional practice for geometric highway design using engineering drawing techniques and mathematical approaches demands heavy iterative manual efforts amidst numerous calculations, which is cumbersome and time consuming. Consequently, it is challenging highway engineers to approach for a broader perspective on geometric design. Given rising trends for advancing intelligent transportation systems for smart, sustainable and climate-resilient cities, a need is felt for developing web application tools for swift and accurate highway design. To this end, present study aims at developing a computer-based conceptual geometric design model called Web Application Tool for Highway Design (WAT-HD) for highway projects using HTML web application-based programming. The software tool comprehensively accounts for designing highway cross-sectional elements, sight distance, horizontal alignment and vertical alignment, along with their detailed components. A comparative assessment of findings from the tool with manual calculations for a two-lane two-way National Highway indicates its high designing accuracy amidst minimal input requirements. The study concludes that computer-based programming approaches could be more efficient while designing highway geometry with ease to modify within economic and environmental parameters. Such applications become more pronounced when pressure is more on achieving goals of smart city design, intelligent urban transportation and reduced vehicular-emission-based greenhouse gas release amidst changing climate.