Abstract

Using Arc Hydro for Prelim Railway Line Design
Track: Transportation
Authors: Peter Wilson

A new GIS model was developed to assist in designing two major railway alignments for four African countries (Liberia and Guinea; Malawi and Mozambique). The model was used to adjust the railway alignment based on determining where culverts and bridges would be required. The catchment characteristics for each structure were automatically generated using Arc Hydro which was part of the final model. The values returned from the catchment characteristics were used as input to the various hydraulic design methodologies to determine the required size of each structure. This was used to determine the cost of building each railway line. The GIS methodology used, allowed the alignment to be optimised based on reducing the amount of structures required. The model also allowed the ability of rerunning the catchment characteristics for various scenarios automatically. This was the first time that Arc Hydro was used to assist in designing a railway alignment.