A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places that has been surfaced or otherwise improved to allow travel by foot or some form of conveyance, including a motor vehicle, cart, bicycle, or horse. Roads have been adapted to a large range of structures and types in order to achieve a common goal of transportation under a large and wide range of conditions. The specific purpose, mode of transport, material [1] [2] and location of a road determine the characteristics it must have in order to maximize its usefulness. Following is one classification scheme.
Marohn distinguishes between roads that are designed for mobility which he terms "roads" and those that function to "build a place", build community wealth and provide access to land. He argues the value of a road in terms of both community wealth and mobility is maximised when the road speed is either low or high, but not at midpoints such as 45mph. He refers to this low-value midpoint of speed and land access as a stroad. [3] : 69
Roads also may be classified based on their pavement material types. For instance, the Long-Term Pavement Performance database includes more than 30 types of pavement types for roads in the US and Canada. [2] [4] [5] However, a more generic classification of roads based on material type is as follows. [5] [6]
In this list, roads names are used in different areas and the features of the roads varies. So this table address the differences in that usage when needed.
Name | Country | subdivision | Access type | Speed | Cross traffic | Divided | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2+1 road | Ireland | High | No | Yes | |||
2+1 road | North America | High | No | Optional | |||
2+1 road | Sweden | Junction (roundabout) | High | No | Yes | ||
2+2 road | High | No | Yes | Type of dual carriageway | |||
Alley | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Arterial road | High | No | Optional | ||||
Autobahn | Germany | Interchange | High | No | Yes | ||
Autocesta | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Autopista | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Autoroute | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Autoroute | Canada | Interchange | High | No | Yes | expressway is synonymous with freeway or autoroute depending on the province | |
Autostrada | Italy | Interchange | High | No | Yes | ||
Autostrasse | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Autoestrada | Portugal | Interchange | High | No | Yes | ||
Avtomagistral (variously translated) | Russia | High | Yes | Designated so according to the communication importance; features vary | |||
Boulevard | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Business route | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Collector/distributor road | High | No | Optional | ||||
Cul-de-sac | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Distributor road | High | No | Optional | ||||
Divided highway | High | No | Optional | ||||
Driveway | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | Optional | |||
Dual carriageway | Ireland | intersection | High | Yes | Yes | ||
Dual carriageway | Singapore | intersection | High | Yes | Yes | ||
Dual carriageway | UK | Uncontrolled | Any | Yes | Yes | ||
Express-collector | High | No | Optional | ||||
Expressway | Partial | Varies | Limited | Varies | General definition | ||
Expressway | US | Partial | Varies | Limited | Yes | General US definition [10] | |
Expressway | Canada | Interchange | High | No | Yes | expressway is synonymous with freeway or autoroute depending on the province | |
Farm-to-market road | High | No | usually a state highway or county highway | ||||
Freeway | US | Interchange | High | No | Yes | ||
Freeway | Canada | Interchange | High | No | Yes | expressway is synonymous with freeway or autoroute depending on the province | |
Frontage road | Argentina | Partial | Low | Yes | No | ||
Frontage road | China | Partial | Low | Yes | No | know locally as service roads or auxiliary roads | |
Frontage road | US | Uncontrolled or Partial | Low | Yes | No | Can be one way roads with opposing directions on either side of the adjoining freeway | |
High-quality dual carriageway | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Highway | High | No | Optional | ||||
Lane | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Link road | High | No | Optional | ||||
Motorway | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Parkway | High | No | Optional | ||||
Provincial road | Italy | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | ||
Provincial road | Netherlands | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | ||
Provincial road | South Africa | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | ||
Provincial road | Turkey | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | ||
Regional road | Ireland | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | ||
Regional road | Italy | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | ||
Road | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Semi-highway | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Single carriageway | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Street | Uncontrolled | Low | Yes | No | |||
Superhighway | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Super two | High | No | Optional | ||||
Thruway | Interchange | High | No | Yes | |||
Two-lane expressway | High | Yes | No |
A roundabout, a rotary and a traffic circle are types of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.
A frontage road is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. A frontage road is often used to provide access to private driveways, shops, houses, industries or farms. Where parallel high-speed roads are provided as part of a major highway, these are also known as local lanes. Sometimes a similar arrangement is used for city roads; for example, the collector portion of Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, is known as a carriage road.
A dual carriageway (BrE) or a divided highway (AmE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are designed to higher standards with controlled access are generally classed as motorways, freeways, etc., rather than dual carriageways.
The Brooker Highway is a highway in the Australian state of Tasmania. As one of Hobart's three major radials, the highway connects traffic from the city centre with the northern suburbs and is the major road connection to the cities and towns of northern Tasmania. With an annual average daily traffic of 48,000, the highway is one of the busiest in Tasmania. The Brooker Highway has recently been declared part of the National Highway.
The road hierarchy categorizes roads according to their functions and capacities. While sources differ on the exact nomenclature, the basic hierarchy comprises freeways, arterials, collectors, and local roads. Generally, the functional hierarchy can more or less correspond to the hierarchy of roads by their owner or administrator.
A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway, expressway, and partial controlled-access highway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway, including limited or no access to adjacent property, some degree of separation of opposing traffic flow, use of grade separated interchanges to some extent, prohibition of slow modes of transport, such as bicycles, horse-drawn vehicles or ridden horses, or self-propelled agricultural machines; and very few or no intersecting cross-streets or level crossings. The degree of isolation from local traffic allowed varies between countries and regions. The precise definition of these terms varies by jurisdiction.
An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector roads to freeways or expressways, and between urban centres at the highest level of service possible. Therefore, many arteries are limited-access roads, or feature restrictions on private access. Because of their relatively high accessibility, many major roads face large amounts of land use and urban development, making them significant urban places.
The Pacific Motorway is a motorway in Australia between Brisbane, Queensland, and Brunswick Heads, New South Wales, through the New South Wales–Queensland border at Tweed Heads.
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms include throughway or thruway and parkway. Some of these may be limited-access highways, although this term can also refer to a class of highways with somewhat less isolation from other traffic.
The pavement condition index (PCI) is a numerical index between 0 and 100, which is used to indicate the general condition of a pavement section. The PCI is widely used in transportation civil engineering and asset management, and many municipalities use it to measure the performance of their road infrastructure and their levels of service. It is a statistical measure and requires manual survey of the pavement. This index was originally developed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as an airfield pavement rating system, but later modified for roadway pavements and standardized by the ASTM. The surveying processes and calculation methods have been documented and standardized by ASTM for both roads and airport pavements:
A two-lane expressway or two-lane freeway is an expressway or freeway with only one lane in each direction, and usually no median barrier. It may be built that way because of constraints, or may be intended for expansion once traffic volumes rise. The term super two is often used by roadgeeks for this type of road, but traffic engineers use that term for a high-quality surface road. Most of these roads are not tolled.
The Hutt Expressway is a 3-4 lane divided highway running from the Wellington Urban Motorway at Ngauranga, past Lower Hutt and central Upper Hutt, to the intersection with Fergusson Drive in Maoribank in north-eastern Upper Hutt. State Highway 2 officially continues north of Maoribank to Te Mārua, Kaitoke, and over the Rimutaka Hill to Wairarapa, but this section is two lanes undivided and is covered in the main State Highway 2 article. The names Hutt Expressway and Hutt Motorway are not official, and actually refers to three different roads: Hutt Road from the Ngauranga Interchange to the Petone Overbridge, Western Hutt Road from the Petone Overbridge to the Silverstream Bridge, and River Road from Silverstream Bridge to Maoribank.
This article describes the highway systems available in selected countries.
Newcastle Link Road is a limited-access road in New South Wales linking the interchange of Pacific Motorway and Hunter Expressway at Cameron Park, to Wallsend in western Newcastle. It is designated part of route A15.
Terminology related to road transport—the transport of passengers or goods on paved routes between places—is diverse, with variation between dialects of English. There may also be regional differences within a single country, and some terms differ based on the side of the road traffic drives on. This glossary is an alphabetical listing of road transport terms.
Pavement performance modeling or pavement deterioration modeling is the study of pavement deterioration throughout its life-cycle. The health of pavement is assessed using different performance indicators. Some of the most well-known performance indicators are Pavement Condition Index (PCI), International Roughness Index (IRI) and Present Serviceability Index (PSI), but sometimes a single distress such as rutting or the extent of crack is used. Among the most frequently used methods for pavement performance modeling are mechanistic models, mechanistic-empirical models, survival curves and Markov models. Recently, machine learning algorithms have been used for this purpose as well. Most studies on pavement performance modeling are based on IRI.
Pavement crack refers to a variety of types of pavement distresses that occur on the surface of pavements. Different types of pavements develop different cracks. Type of cracking is also correlated with the type of climate and traffic. Sometimes the cracks are aggregated using an index such as Crack index, and sometimes they are merged with other distresses and are reported using Pavement Condition Index.
A stroad is a type of street–road hybrid. Common in the United States and Canada, stroads are wide arterials that often provide access to strip malls, drive-throughs, and other automobile-oriented businesses. Stroads have been criticized by urban planners for their safety issues and inefficiencies. While streets serve as a destination and provide access to shops and residences at safe traffic speeds, and roads serve as a high-speed connection that can efficiently move traffic at high speed and volume, stroads are often expensive, inefficient, and dangerous.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)A side road taken, instead of a turnpike or expressway, to avoid tolls or to travel at a leisurely pace.