At Transport Planning Practice, we prepare innovative designs for all kinds of highway schemes including improvements and modifications to existing highways, site access arrangements, internal road layouts, and junction designs.
About Highway Design
Highway and road design is vital to any new development. The obvious reason being that no development can proceed without a clear, defined idea of how it will be laid out and accessed.
Depending on the nature of the planning application (i.e. if access forms part of the reserved matters or not), there are a number of things local authorities will want to assess before permission for a development is granted. Many of these will require at least preliminary designs to be submitted in order for proper assessment to be carried out. Local authorities, at the very minimum, will seek a road design that minimises danger and nuisance from traffic in the vicinity of homes. They will assess the transport challenges associated with a scheme, and whether it will be able to properly tackle or manage these challenges. This is true whether the project is designed to solve existing congestion issues through alterations to the road network, or create new challenges by increasing traffic in an area.
What Should a Good Road Design Achieve?
A good road design should provide practical, workable solutions to transport challenges and provide an appropriate, easy-to-navigate solution to drivers making use of the finished network. Roads, both public and as part of a private, internal network, should be organised in such a way as to properly handle the traffic volumes it is likely to experience without excessive congestion. Site entry points must be accessible to all relevant vehicle types without causing confusion or difficulty on connected roads, and junction designs should allow for smooth flow of traffic in all directions without right-of-way confusion, or dangerous interaction between traffic streams.
For more information on Transport Planning Practice’s road and highway design service and how we might be able to help with the planning stages of your project, please contact us.