Green Road Approach for the Sustainable Development in India
Road transport is considered to be one of the cost effective and preferred modes oftransport for both freight and passengers. India has an extensive road network of 4.24million km– the second largest in the world (MoRTH, 2005). The National Highways havea total length of 70,934 km and serve as the arterial road network of the country. It isestimated that more than 70 per cent of freight and 85 per cent of passenger traffic in thecountry is being handled by roads. While Highways/ Expressways constitute only about 2% of the length of all roads, rest are state highway, major district road , district roads andrural and other road which is consider as low volume road.Growing public awareness of climate change requires transportation professionals tointegrate green concepts into the transportation planning, design, construction, andoperation processes.Green highways are a relatively new concept although the implementation of technologiesinvolved in green highway design has been encouraged for many years. A green road maynot look like normal road at first glance, but with closer inspection a driver will noticesubtle difference. More plant life grows along the shoulder, and more trees are planted aswildlife buffers and ridding quality. In towns, highways become more aestheticallypleasing, and in rural areas highways become a more natural part of the environment agreen highway can be defined by five broad topics such as Conservation and EcosystemManagement, Water Shed Driven Strong Water Management, Life Cycle Energy andEmissions Reduction, Recycles Reuse And Renewable, Overall Societal Benefits.This paper describes the factor affecting of green road and construction process ofwearing course of pavement through Microsurfacing which reduce the both direct andindirect cost. Microsurfacing is environmental friendly which reduce the greenhouse gasand fuel consummation.
Safety Effect of Preventive Maintenance
Various North American transportation agencies have implemented several preventive maintenance techniques to improve pavement performance and safety. The York Region, located northeast of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has been resurfacing and remedying pavements with microsurfacing treatments to improve the pavement surface conditions, but without a good understanding of how the treatment affects road safety. With data made accessible by the region, a before-and-after study was done, with the goal of gaining an understanding of how microsurfacing and resurfacing treatments affect road safety. The study concludes that microsurfacing and resurfacing can have a positive safety effect, with crash reduction factors as high as 54%. However, those activities are sensitive to the influence of treatment year data (which may be an anomaly period) and average annual daily traffic per lane. Generally, the findings illustrate that microsurfacing has a positive safety effect on locations susceptible to a number of conditions: regular occurrence of wet or slick (not dry) road surface conditions, a trend toward severe crashes, frequent intersection-related crashes, and a high occurrence of rear-end crashes. Findings of this study have opened the door to additional research; integration of safety under the pavement umbrella seems so logical and yet has barely been explored. For now, the crash reduction factors derived from the study can be applied by the region of York and by other jurisdictions to make more sound decisions at the network level when selecting pavement maintenance treatments.
An overview of truck and bus safety: 1999 Knoxville symposium
This paper presents a summary of the topics and discussions from the Second International Truck and Bus Safety Symposium held in Knoxville, Tennessee, October 6-8, 1999. This paper is not a technical paper but is based on the symposium proceedings, which can be accessed for more technical information. The symposium provided an opportunity for the many stakeholders in truck and bus safety, such as carriers, shippers, inspectors, law enforcement officials, insurers, regulators, manufacturers and researchers, to network and discuss the key issues associated with truck and bus safety.