Year In Infrastructure 2005

ROAD DESIGN
Bucuresti - Brasov - Tg.
Mures Motorway
Search Corporation

The motorway connecting the Romanian capital of Bucharest with the country’s Hungarian will link Romania’s main traffic centers with Central and Western Europe,

serving a quarter of Romania’s population. Search Corporation carried out a feasibility study for the 331-kilometer highway project.

With a relatively short time to produce the study, Search Corporation needed road design software that was powerful and flexible enough to allow fast analysis of a great number of alternatives. Search Corporation used Bentley MXROAD in order to:

• Create a digital terrain model from exist-
ing DWG files
• Easily add supplementary survey data to
digitized maps
• Create 3D visualizations easily, allowing
quick consideration of a design’s esthetic
impact on its environment
• Simultaneously analyze the three major
elements of road design—horizontal
alignment, vertical alignment and cross
sections—by use of multiple on-screen
views ;

VISUALIZATION

CA FH 224 Bautisa
Canyon Road
Federal Highway Administration,
Virginia Division

culty conceptualizing what a constructed facility would look like. Making decisions without fully grasping the design implications often causes problems down the line. After construction work has started, making changes is either impossible or very expensive.

For FHWA, MicroStation’s animation features and lighting tools helped make these visualizations more dramatic and realistic. ;

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is developing a plan to improve 8.2 miles of Bautista Canyon Road. The unpaved section of road links two communities and provides access to San Bernardino National Forest, but needs to be improved for safe and reliable travel. Local and federal agencies recommend a $12 million reconstruction.

Photo simulations created with MicroStation and GEOPAK provided a clear, accurate picture of the project and its impacts, long before construction. This understanding was important not only to FHWA, but also to officials whose approval is needed.