Highway Engineering

Highway engineering is an engineering discipline branching from civil engineering that involves the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of roads, bridges, and tunnels to ensure safe and effective transportation of people and goods. Highway engineers are civil engineers who plan and help build roads and highways.

There are three major branches of highway engineering: planning, research, and construction.

Planning engineers work with the city and regional planners. They try to figure out ways to relieve traffic congestion in overcrowded areas. They analyze traffic patterns and keep abreast of the construction of new buildings that might cause future traffic problems. Highway engineers must also consider the effect new roads will have on the environment. 

Highway engineers who specialize in research are concerned with finding new ways and means for building highways. They investigate new machines and technology, new pavement designs, and improved maintenance operations. This research is the basis for well-planned and well-built highways.

Construction highway engineers work on the site to check the quality of the work. They make sure the cost of the project is not greater than the amount of money that has been budgeted for it. Contractors sometimes employ highway engineers for the same purpose.

Highway engineers work with building materials such as concrete, earth, steel, and asphalt. They work or are familiar with a wide range of tools, from earthmoving equipment to computers.

A career as a Highway Engineer is very rewarding in a number of ways. You will be involved in many different projects from minor proposals right the way through to complex high profile major developments which may be of national or regional importance. One particularly rewarding aspect is seeing the development you have worked on being built and operating successfully for years to come.

Objectives of Highway Engineering

This Highway Engineering Diploma programme prepares individuals to apply mathematical and scientific principles to the design, development and operational evaluation of total systems for the physical movement of people, materials, and information, including general network design and planning, facilities planning, site evaluation, transportation management systems, needs projections and analysis, and analysis of costs.