Planning is considered a pre-requisite for any development work. Highway road project can be defined as the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of road project goals and objectives. Planning is the basic requirement for any new project or an expansion programme. Actually planning is the best utilisation of available funds in a systematic and planned way to derive maximum benefits out of the money spent. Thus highway planning is also a basic need for its development. Specially planning is of great importance when the available resources are limited and the requirement is much higher.The major steps in the planning process are the articulation of goals and objects, data collection, data analysis and model development, travel forecasting, and systems analysis and evaluation.
The objects of highway planning
1. To provide safe and efficient roads at minimum cost.
2. To plan for future requirements and improvements of roads in view of anticipated developments.
3. Defining the highway planning process, establishing necessary standards, and auditing performance;
4. Leading the development of the provincial highway system;
5. Developing and implementing the ministry’s development approvals program;
6. The highway should be as direct as possible between the cities to be linked, as it will result in economy in construction, maintenance and operation
7. To construct the best possible road system having maximum utility within the available resources.
8. To fix up the priorities for future development on utility basis.
9. To work out the financing system.
10. Articulate the goals and objects of the planning effort.
11. Define study constrains, e.g , time, cost, available resources, etc.
12. Employ basic systems analysis procedures to select the most appropriate method of approach; what is the
13. Use the selected approach to produce probable impacts of alternative systems.
14. Evaluation the various alternatives, using the basic systems analysis approach in construction with previously agreed upon performance measures to select the best available alternative.
15. Translate the best alternative into an implementation plan including individual project statements.