Highway Design and Engineering

The art and science of highway design and engineering has been constantly evolving since ancient times. Notably, the Roman Empire connected and policed its sprawling provinces and colonies by means of well-constructed roads, causeways, bridges, and viaducts—many of which have lasted millennia and are still in everyday use by today's wheeled vehicles. These thoroughfares might not have lasted so long had it not been for the salient fact that the hands-on, materials-science knowledge of those Roman builders and craftsmen was matched by the administrative energy and expertise of the specifiers, engineers, and designers. Every mile of every road had to be surveyed and laid out in a certain way and then built and maintained under a very specific regimen.

In the modern era, the designers and engineers of highway networks may be excused for sometimes thinking that there are more “bureaucrats” than warranted. Even though the highway systems of the world carry billions of passengers and vast tonnage of goods to all but the most remote areas of the inhabited world, it may seem that no stretch of road is beyond the reach of lawmakers and policy administrators with a burning desire to tweak, amend, update, change, and challenge the existing ways and means of highway construction.

Yet there are very sound reasons—practical, moral, social, and professional—for this state of affairs. The dramatic results in the decline of traffic fatalities is one of the more obvious justifications for maintaining comprehensive and up-to-date codes and enforcement of highway layout and building methods, and an inducement for authorities to continue funding improvements quite generously within policy guidelines. In the United States, for example, according to data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was cut from 5.06 fatalities/VMT in 1960 to 1.11 in 2010. Components of this drop included: better driver education, better automotive safety technology, more aggressive enforcement of anti-driving-while-impaired (specifically targeting alcohol) laws, and improved highway design and construction practices.