Yangtze River Tunnel – A Project Of E&C ... - Roof & Facade

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TRANSPORTATION
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in securing additional land. However, the
exist-ing right-of-way proved to be minimal,
so a large amount of private land had
to be acquired. SWK India identified the
additional land needed, generated the coordinate
data, and staked the areas out on
the ground before verifying and transferring
the data back onto revenue maps used
to contact landowners. This understanding
and outcome had altered the social
Designs & Returns
The project report provided designs for the
highway, pavement (with options for flexible
or rigid pavement), overlay, bridges,
cross-drainage structures, grade-separated
structures, and service roads. SWK India
calculated quantities for many items and
Plan and profile of NH-9
generated detailed working drawings as
well as cost estimates. Other reports produced
included the analyses of economic
viability and environmental and social feasibility
(with action plans as appropriate),
as well as all documents needed for the bidding
process.
NHAI also required SWK India to include
the kind of financial returns that
could be generated through tolls and other
revenues. It would use these to help attract
private businesses to build and operate its
new roads. During the process, SWK India
found that while the stretch from
Vijayawada to Vuyyuru was likely to have
sufficient traffic for a build-operate-transfer
operator to recover its costs, the stretch
from Vuyyuru to Machilipatnam did not.
Having this data meant NHAI was able to
seek assurances from the Andhra Pradesh
state government over the planned development
of Machilipatnam as a deepwater
port facility, there-by increasing the
amount of goods transported on that
stretch of roadway.
Design in the Fast Lane
Initial topographic surveys took three to
four months to complete, and during this
process SWK India was able to fix preliminary
alignments. Once the survey data was
available, the firm could check them
against field conditions using MXROAD
and complete the detailed engineering of
121 kilometers of roadway. NHAI identified
eight locations where bypasses could
relieve congestion near towns. For each
bypass location, SWK India prepared several
alternative alignments before running
a cost/benefit analysis on each. The bypass
for the towns of Kodad and Pamaru
proved to be particularly challenging, as
the alignments had to be routed to minimize
interference with agricultural fields,
cart paths, field channels, and a major canal
surrounding the towns.
There were also situations in which a
bypass had already been proposed and the
land-acquisition process completed. In
these cases, SWK India fixed the road alignment
according to earlier plans using nondigital
details provided by NHAI.
In total, SWK India ended up designing
nearly 200 kilometers of road because
of the multiple alignment options required.
For each case, SWK India used revenue
maps to determine the extent of land acquisition
already completed as well as the
new land required along the centerline of
the planned route.
Finally, the road designs were evaluated
for safety by outside experts. SWK
India was able to create 3D visualisations
of the project in order to convey sight distances
and their suitability for the surrounding
terrain along the road.
Use of MXROAD, SWK India, had
noted, enabled an integrated workflow that
extended from processing the survey data
all the way through to preparing land-acquisition
plans, relocating utilities, and
generating quantity takeoffs. The engineers
prepared input files to create roadway
edges, apply camber and super-elevation
as well as create verges, shoulders, lay-bys,
median openings, junctions, and earthwork
styles. Managing the different phases
of engineering design on a single platform
helped ensure a consistent and uniform
design product, even extending to small
details such as linetypes and styles. The
coordinated workflow ensured that different
departments were always working on
the current version of the design. ICA
Volume 2 Issue 7 2008 ICA 21