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A Method to Identify and Classify the Vertical Alignment of Existing Roads
Author(s) -
Higuera de Frutos Santiago,
Castro María
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
computer‐aided civil and infrastructure engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.773
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1467-8667
pISSN - 1093-9687
DOI - 10.1111/mice.12302
Subject(s) - horizontal and vertical , sight , computer science , geometric design , geometric data analysis , geometric shape , geometry , data mining , artificial intelligence , mathematics , physics , astronomy
A detailed knowledge of the geometric characteristics of already built roads is necessary for various tasks related to their exploitation. However, sufficiently accurate or updated information about their geometric characteristics is frequently not available. Therefore, it is common to collect data of road geometry normally by means of a vehicle equipped with various sensors and, from the data obtained, generate analytically a geometric design that fits reality as closely as possible. There are several procedures to recreate the horizontal alignment of existing roads. However, no such effort has been made for vertical alignment. Knowledge of vertical profile's geometry is important for safety traffic studies as sight distance. This article presents a method of obtaining the geometrical elements of the vertical profile of highways through the longitudinal slope of their centerline points. The procedure has been successfully validated by its application on five rural highways in Spain.