Innovation needed to improve road construction and road infrastructure in the future in India

Abstract

Abstract Road Construction which comes under Highway Engineering is an important area in Transportation Engineering, which is a major branch of Civil Engineering. Roads are extremely important for inland transportation and are valuable mode of transportation in the case of landlocked regions. Even though roads and waterways were popular modes of transportation from ancient times, but roads were way safer in comparison to the latter. In the recorded history, during the Roman era, roads were focused and they were developed through innovative designs and methods according to that era. Before Roman era, roads were found to be un-metalled ones and it used to become troublesome to use them especially during rainy season. The Romans were able to overcome this problem and made a breakthrough during that era. However, this was just the beginning of innovations in designs, methods and materials to construct roads over time. In the 21st century, the roads are highly strong and durable but with the current technologies, more innovations can be done in terms of materials and technologies to improve them further in the future. Of course, airways has also come into picture as a fast mode of transportation but roads are way cheaper mode of transportation in comparison to the former. In this paper, some possible innovations that can be applied in the construction of roads will be highlighted. This includes Self-Healing Concrete, Prefabricated Plastic Roads, Recycled Plastic Roads as well as Solar Roads, which will be briefly discussed in the paper. Their comparison to the conventional roads will be done to understand their utility. Some graphical analysis is also performed on the basis of the data collected from different sources in this paper.