Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, today released India’s first-ever highway capacity manual in New Delhi.

The manual, known as Indo-HCM, has been developed by CSIR–CRRI on the basis of an extensive, country-wide study of the traffic characteristics  on different categories  of roads like single lane, two-lane, multi-lane urban roads,  inter-urban highways and  expressways and the associated intersections on these roads.

The study involved seven academic institutions including IITs at Roorkee, Mumbai and Guwahati, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Engineering and Science and Technology, Shibpur, Sardar Vallabhai Patel National Institute of Technology, Surat and Anna University, Chennai.

The manual lays down guidelines for when and how to expand or manage different types of roads and their intersections and the level of services to be put in place. Designed to be a useful tool for guiding road engineers and policy makers in the country, it has been developed based on the unique nature and diversity of traffic on Indian roads. While countries like USA, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan developed their own highway capacity manuals years ago, this is the first time that the manual has been developed in India.

Speaking on the occasion, Gadkari expressed hope that the manual would help in the scientific planning and expansion of road infrastructure in India. Calling upon the scientific fraternity, as well as the designers, policy makers and executioners of highways projects the minister said that India urgently needs to catch up with the world’s best technology and practices being used in the sector to build world class infrastructure that is safe, cost effective and also environment friendly.

Gadkari also underscored the need to popularise the use of new material like fly-ash, plastic, oil slag and municipal waste in road construction, saying that scientists and the media should also play an active role in this regard. He also called upon researchers and engineers to expedite formulation of a good design for safe and effective speedbreakers for Indian roads.

Also read: 1,317 accidents and 413 deaths on Indian roads each day in 2016