ROAD TRANSPORTATION
Early Road Builders
World History of Road Transportation
It started with the development of tracks by
humans and their beasts of burden.
Early Roads
The first forms of road transport were horses,
oxen or even humans carrying goods over track
s that often followed game trails
One example that still exists in the US is the
Natchez Trace.
The first vehicle is believed to have been
the travois, a frame used to drag loads, which
probably developed in Eurasia after the first use
of bullocks (castrated cattle) for pulling ploughs.
In about 5000 BC, sleds developed, which are
more difficult to build than travois, but are easier
to propel over smooth surfaces. Pack animals,
ridden horses and bullocks dragging travois or
sleds require wider paths and higher clearances
than people on foot and improved tracks were
required. As a result, by about 5000 BC roads,
including the Ridgeway, developed along ridges
in England to avoid crossing rivers and bogging
Meanwhile about 3,500 BC the wheel was
invented in what is now Iraq.
Heavy four-wheeled wagons developed about
2500BC, only suitable for oxen-haulage. At first
wheels were made of solid pieces of wood
lashed together to form a circle but after 2,000
BC they were made with spokes.
Mesopotamia where wheels were developed
was one of the first areas roads developed. The
roads were hard surfaces for travel purposes. In
2000 BC, the Minoans built a road from Knossos
in the mountains to Gortyn and Lebena on the
coast. It was 50 kilometers. It was made of
sandstone blocks and gypsum mortar.
Roman Roads
The Romans are famous for the network of
roads they built across the Empire. They used
deep beds of crushed stone and the more
heavily traveled roads used pavers to allow
chariots to travel more quickly.
Roman legionaries built them so the Roman
army could march from one part of the empire to
another quickly. Rich people travelled by horse
or on long journeys by covered wagon.
Early Tar Paved Roads
The most sophisticated roads were those
of Baghdad, Iraq, which were paved with tar in
the 8th century. Tar was derived from petroleum,
accessed from oil fields in the region, through
the chemical process of destructive distillation.
John Metcalf (17171810) also known as Blind
Jack Metcalf. Blind from the age of six, in the
period 1765 to 1792 he built about 180 miles
(290 km) of turnpike road, mainly in the north of
England.
Turnpikes
1663 The first turnpike roads open. You have to
pay to use them
Early roads were costly and were usually built by
private companies.
In the US prior to 1790 roads were built,
financed, and managed towns through road
labor taxes.
Many began and ended right outside of the town
limits.
Often these roads were made of wooden planks.
They were maintained by citizens who either
contributed money, materials, or labor.
John Loudon MacAdam a Scotsman, who built
roads in England in 1815. He invented a method
that simplified what had been considered state
of the art at that point. Single-sized aggregate
layers of small stones, with a coating of binder
as a cementing agent, are mixed in an open-
structured roadway. These roads were called
macadam roads.
This was the beginning of the modern pavement
era.
Modern roads
Macadam roads were adequate for use by
horses and carriages or coaches, but they were
very dusty and subject to erosion with heavy
rain.
The Good Roads Movement occurred in the
United States between the late 1870s and the
1920s. Advocates for improved roads led by
bicyclists such as the League of American
Bicyclists turned local agitation into a national
political movement.
Modern tarmac was patented by British civil
engineer Edgar Purnell Hooley, who noticed
that spilled tar on the roadway kept the dust
down and created a smooth surface. He took out
a patent in 1901 for tarmac
Tarmac is a material used for surfacing roads or
other outdoor areas, consisting of crushed rock
mixed with tar
Hooley's 1901 patent for Tarmac involved
mechanically mixing tar and aggregate prior to
lay-down, and then compacting the mixture with
a steamroller. The tar was modified by adding
small amounts of Portland cement, resin,
and pitch.
 HISTORY OF ROAD TRANSPORTATION IN THE
PHILIPPINES
Evolution of road transportation
The first is just by walking.
The datu has a servants to carry them.(1500-
1521)
carabao cart (1500-present)
caretella or calesa (1850-present) Spanish
period
tranvia (1888) Spanish period
Bicycle , during Spanish period (1890s -present)
Automobile , during American period (1900)
BUS , American period (1912-present)
Scooter and motorcycle , American period
(1920s- present)
Taxi , American period (1930s - present)
Jeepney , American period (1941-present)
Pedicab and Tricycle , modern period (1950s -
present)
Air con bus , 1990s present
E- jeep , 2007-present
PHILIPPINE ROADS
The Philippines has 199,950 kilometres
(124,240 mi) of roads, of which 39,590 kilometres
(24,600 mi) are paved. As of 2004, the total length of the
non-toll road network was reported to be 202,860 km,
with the following breakdown according to type:
National roads - 15%
Provincial roads - 13%
City and municipal roads - 12%
Barangay roads - 60%
In 1940, there were 22,970 kilometres
(14,270 mi) of road in the entire country, half of which
was in central and southern Luzon the roads served
50,000 vehicles.
HIGHWAYS
As of 2015, the Philippine highway network has
a total length of 19,162.72 kilometres (11,907.16 mi) of
concrete roads, 9,756.45 kilometres (6,062.38 mi) of
asphalt roads, 3,636.96 kilometres (2,259.90 mi) of
gravel roads, and 77.24 kilometres (47.99 mi) of earth
roads.
The Pan-Philippine Highway is a 3,517 km
(2,185 mi) network of roads, bridges, and ferry services
that connect the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte,
and Mindanao, serving as the Philippines' principal
transport backbone. The northern terminus of the
highway is in Laoag, and the southern terminus is
at Zamboanga City.
The Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) is
one of the most known highways of the Philippines, the
highway serves the National Capital Region of the
Philippines, it also serves as an important highway in the
metropolis. The avenue passes through 6 of the 17
settlements in the region, namely, the cities
of Caloocan, Quezon City, Mandaluyong, San
Juan, Makati and Pasay. EDSA is the longest highway in
the metropolis and handles an average of 2.34 million
vehicles. Commonwealth Avenue is also an important
highway in the metropolis, it serves the Quezon
City area and has a length of 12.4 km (7.7 mi). Other
important thoroughfares in Metro Manila that are part of
the Philippine highway network include Espaa
Boulevard, Quezon Avenue, Taft Avenue, and Alabang
Zapote Road.
Outside Metro Manila, the MacArthur
Highway links Metro Manila to the provinces in central
and northern Luzon. It is a component of both N1 (from
Caloocan to Guiguinto) and N2 (from Guiguinto
northwards to Laoag) of the Philippine highway network
and Radial Road 9 (R-9) of Metro Manila's arterial road
network. Both Kennon Road and AspirasPalispis
Highway are major roads leading to and
from Baguio. Aguinaldo Highway, Jose Laurel
Highway, Manila South Road, and CalambaSanta
CruzFamy Road (part of Manila East Road) are the
major roads in the CALABARZON area. Andaya
Highway (N68) links the province of Quezon to Bicol
Region. Located in Cebu City is the Colon Street,
considered the oldest thoroughfare in the country.
Among the major highways in Mindanao are Sayre
Highway, ButuanCagayan de OroIliganOzamiz
Road, SurigaoDavao Road, DavaoCotabato Road,
and Maria Clara L. Lobregat Highway.
EXPRESSWAYS
The North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) is a 4 to
8-lane limited-access toll expressway that
connects Metro Manila to the provinces of the Central
Luzon region. The expressway begins in Quezon City at
a cloverleaf interchange with EDSA. It then passes
through various cities and municipalities in the provinces
of Bulacan and Pampanga. The expressway currently
ends at Mabalacat and merges with the MacArthur
Highway, which continues northward into the rest of
Central and Northern Luzon.
The South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) is
another important expressway in the country, it serves
the southern part of Luzon. The expressway is a network
of two expressways that connects Metro Manila to the
provinces of the CALABARZON region in the southern
part of Luzon. It starts at the Paco District of Manila then
passesthrough Manila, Makati, Pasay, Paraaque, Tagui
g and Muntinlupa in Metro Manila; San Pedro, Bian
City, Carmona in Cavite, the transverses again to Bian
City, Santa Rosa City, Cabuyao City and Calamba
City in the province of Laguna and ends in Santo Tomas,
Batangas.
The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway is another
expressway that serves the region of Central Luzon, the
expressway is linked to the North Luzon
Expressway through the Mabalacat Interchange. Its
southern terminus is at the Subic Bay Freeport
Zone in Zambales, it passes through the Clark Freeport
Zone and its northern terminus is at Brgy. Amucao
in Tarlac City, Tarlac. Construction on the expressway
began in April 2005, and opened to the public three
years later.
The Strong Republic Nautical Highway links
many of the islands' road networks through a series
of roll-on/roll-off ferries, some rather small covering short
distances and some larger vessels that might travel
several hours or more.
The Philippine government and other private
sectors are building more plans and proposals to build
new expressways through publicprivate partnership.
Intelligent transportation systems
Are advanced applications which aim to provide
innovative services relating to different modes of
transport and traffic management and enable
various users to be better informed and make
safer, more coordinated, and smarter use of
transport networks.
Systems in which information and
communication technologies are applied in the
field of road transport, including infrastructure,
vehicles and users, and in traffic management
and mobility management, as well as for
interfaces with other modes of transport.
Intelligent transportation technologies
Wireless communications
Various forms of wireless communications
technologies have been proposed for intelligent
transportation systems. Radio modem communication
on UHF and VHF frequencies are widely used for short
and long range communication within ITS.
Computational technologies
Recent advances in vehicle electronics have led
to a move towards fewer, more capable computer
processors on a vehicle. A typical vehicle in the early
2000s would have between 20 and 100 individual
networked microcontroller/Programmable logic
controller modules with non-real-time operating systems.
The current trend is toward fewer, more
costly microprocessor modules with hardware memory
management and real-time operating systems. The
new embedded system platforms allow for more
sophisticated software applications to be implemented,
including model-based process control, artificial
intelligence, and ubiquitous computing. Perhaps the
most important of these for Intelligent Transportation
Systems is artificial intelligence.
Floating car data/Cellular data
Floating car or probe data collected other transport
routes.
ADVANTAGES:
Less expensive than sensors/cameras
More coverage
Faster to set up and less maintenance
Works in all weather condition
Sensing technologies
Vehicle-sensing systems include deployment
of infrastructure-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure
electronic beacons for identification communications and
may also employ video automatic number plate
recognition or vehicle magnetic signature detection
technologies at desired intervals to increase sustained
monitoring of vehicles operating in critical zones.
Inductive loop detection
Inductive loops can be placed in a roadbed to
detect vehicles as they pass through the loop's magnetic
field. The simplest detectors simply count the number of
vehicles during a unit of time (typically 60 seconds in
the United States) that pass over the loop, while more
sophisticated sensors estimate the speed, length, and
class of vehicles and the distance between them. Loops
can be placed in a single lane or across multiple lanes,
and they work with very slow or stopped vehicles as well
as vehicles moving at high speed.
Video vehicle detection
Since video detection systems such as those
used in automatic number plate recognition do not
involve installing any components directly into the road
surface or roadbed, this type of system is known as a
"non-intrusive" method of traffic detection. Video from
cameras is fed into processors that analyse the
changing characteristics of the video image as vehicles
pass. The cameras are typically mounted on poles or
structures above or adjacent to the roadway. The typical
output from a video detection system is lane-by-lane
vehicle speeds, counts, and lane occupancy readings.
Some systems provide additional outputs including gap,
headway, stopped-vehicle detection, and wrong-way
vehicle alarms.
Bluetooth detection
Bluetooth is a wireless standard used to
communicate between electrondresses from Bluetooth
devices in passing vehicles. If these sensors are
interconnected they are able to calculate travel time and
provide data for origin and destination matrices.
Compared to other traffic measurement technologies,
Bluetooth measurement has some differences:
Accurate measurement points with absolute
confirmation to provide to the second travel
times.
Is non-intrusive, which can lead to lower-cost
installations for both permanent and temporary
sites.
Is limited to how many Bluetooth devices are
broadcasting in a vehicle so counting and other
applications are limited.
Systems are generally quick to set up with little
to no calibration needed.
Audio detection
It is also possible to measure traffic density on
a road using the Audio signal that consists of the
cumulative sound from tire noise, engine noise, engine-
idling noise, honks and air turbulence noise. A roadside-
installed microphone picks up the audio that comprises
the various vehicle noise and Audio signal
processing techniques can be used to estimate the
traffic state. The accuracy of such a system compares
well with the other methods described above.
Information fusion from multiple traffic sensing modalities
The data from the different sensing technologies
can be combined in intelligent ways to determine the
traffic state accurately. A Data fusion based approach
that utilizes the road side collected acoustic, image and
sensor data has been shown to combine the advantages
of the different individual methods.
 Road Technology
Soil and Rock Compaction
Soil Compaction
Since the soil is frequently loose and
insufficiently cohesive, earthworks are required
before the base course, binder course and
surface course can be laid. Compaction is the
most important process in earthworks. The
purpose of compaction is to reduce the volume
of soil filled with air and water. This gives the soil
the desired properties: it becomes more
resistant to the stresses imposed by traffic and
climate.
Nature doesnt always provide the ideal
foundation for the construction of roads: natural
rock. In the majority of cases, the ground is
unstable, offering insufficient bearing capacity.
Earthmoving operations are therefore usually
the first step in the construction of a new road.
When the course has been defined and set out,
the ground underlying the new road needs to be
prepared.
Soil Stabilization
Road construction requires a stable base. How
to improve the nature of existing soil? What are
the binding agents used for this purpose.
Extremely cohesive and wet soils are not
suitable for compaction by rollers. In such cases,
the existing soil needs to be stabilized first to
improve its bearing capacity and prepare it as a
suitable base for the upper pavement structure
Routing Operations
Before commencing the actual road building
operation, the prerequisites for doing so need to
be established. When driving roads through
rocky terrain, cold milling machines or surface
miners are used to prepare the ground for road
construction - or to cut the route, as the
professionals would say.
Road builders are confronted not only with
subsoils that are excessively soft or instable, but
also with bases that are extremely hard too
hard for roads to be built to the specified level
without preparing the ground first. This difficulty
typically arises when a road is to be built in
mountainous terrain or in other areas where the
ground is rocky or extremely hard. When that is
the case, routing operations need to be carried
out first.
Construction of Road
Construction of Base Layers
The base layer of a road lays the foundation for
the upper pavement structure. It must offer
excellent bearing capacity, be capable of
withstanding a broad range of different climatic
conditions, and remain functional over several
decades.
The base course serves as a foundation for the
paving. Depending on the stresses to be
expected, the road comprises various layers of
different thickness in order to withstand the most
diverse weather conditions and remain
serviceable for many decades
Asphalt Paving
Asphalt paving requires an exceptionally high
degree of meticulous logistical planning and
management. Care needs to be taken that
sufficient quantities of mix are available on site
all the time, and that the mix will not cool down
prematurely.
Paving asphalt requires outstanding logistics.
Care must always be taken to ensure that
sufficient mix is available and that the material
does not cool.
Asphalt Compaction
Compaction is the final procedure in road
construction, its goal being to produce a surface
texture of high quality. What aspects need to be
considered in asphalt compaction? When
compacting an asphalt road, what impact will the
roads location or ambient temperatures have on
the compacting operation?
Compaction of the asphalt pavement should
yield a uniform surface with the greatest
possible skid resistance and ensure that the
individual asphalt courses are firmly and durably
interlinked to produce high stability and wear
resistance, as well as enduring evenness.
Rollers or compactors reduce the number of
voids. This makes the asphalt more resistant to
stress and extends its durability
Inset Concrete Paving
Concrete is a particularly durable material and
eminently suitable for roads which have to
withstand high loads.
Slipform paving is a standard method that is
primarily used to pave large roads and runways
using inset technology
Offset Concrete Paving
Instead of placing pre-fabricated concrete parts
in a manual operation, the required profiles can
also be produced by slipform pavers in offset
application.
 Edgings, protective barriers on the central
reservation of motorways, gulleys to drain water
- concrete can be moulded into many shapes.
Such concrete profiles can be produced simply
and economically using offset slipforming
technology.
Advantages of road transportation
1. Less Capital Outlay
Road transport required much less capital
investment as compared to other modes of
transportation such as railways and air
transport.
The cost of constructing, operating and
maintaining roads is cheaper than that of
railways.
Roads are generally constructed by the
government and local authorities and only as
small revenue is charged for the use of roads.
2. Door to Door Service
8. Rapid Speed
If the foods are to be sent immediate or quickly,
motor transport is more suited than the railways
or water transport.
Water transport is very slow. Also much time is
wasted in booking the goods and taking delivery
of the goods in case of railway and water
transport.
9. Private Ouwned Vehicles
Another advantage of road transport is that big
businessmen can afford to have their own motor
vehicles and initiate their own road services to
market their products without causing any delay.
10. Feeder to other Modes of Transport
The movement of goods begins and ultimately
ends by making use of roads. Road and motor
transport act as a feeder to the other modes of
transport such as railways, ships and airways.

The outstanding advantage of road transport is

that it provides door to door or warehouse to
warehouse service. This reduces cartage,
loading and unloading expenses.

3. Service in Rural Areas

Road transport is most suited for carrying goods

and people to and from rural areas which are not
served by rail, water or air transport.

Exchange of goods, between large towns and

small villages is made possible only through
road transport.

4. Flexible Service

Road transport has a great advantage over

other modes of transport for its flexible service,
its routes and timings can be adjusted and
changed to individual requirements without
much inconvenience.

5. Suitable for Short Distance

It is more economic and quicker for carrying

goods and people over short distances. Delays
in transit of goods on account of intermediate
loading and handling are avoided. Goods can be
loaded direct into a road vehicle and transported
straight to their place of destination.

6. Lesser Risk of Damage in Transit

As the intermediate loading and handling is

avoided, there is lesser risk of damage,
breakage and etc. of goods in transit.
Thus, road transport is most suited for
transporting delicate goods like chinaware and
glassware, which are likely to be damaged in the
process of loading and unloading.

7. Saving in Packing Cost

As compared to other modes of transport, the

process of packing in motor transport is less
complicated. Goods transported by motor
transport require less packing or no packing in
several cases.