Project name: Construction documentation G2-108 Hrastnik – Zidani Most and road deviation G1-5 Rimske Toplice – Zidani Most – Radeče

Project num.: 17_622

Design objects: 9km deviation roads, 4 railway overpass, 2 railway underpass, 4 bridges over river, supporting and retaining walls.

THE GOAL: The main goal of the new transport connection is to improve the poor condition of the main road situated in a steep and narrow corridor in between railway tracks and the Sava River.

SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS USED: Civil3D for DTM editing Plateia for road alignments, profile and cross section calculation and analysis Ferrovia for railway alignments, profile and cross section calculation and analysis and many other special software applications.

RESULTS: Design team and software vendor close cooperation significant improvement of the road safety and service.

The main goal of the new transport connection was to improve the poor condition of the main road situated in a steep and narrow corridor in between railway tracks and the Sava River. Its position and the surrounding space made two-way traffic impossible.

The biggest issue was transporting children by normal buses and delivery of construction materials by larger trucks. The aforementioned section was hazardous for road users and for the local residents, not to mention a hindrance to this area’s economic development. This project is also a part of the Third development axis, which will establish a traffic connection from the north to the south-eastern part of Slovenia (from the Austrian to Croatian border). The length of the main road section was approximately 9 km. In addition to the main roads, it was necessary to enable extremely difficult connections of local (connecting) roads with unique overpasses crossing the railway line, which would greatly improve road safety.

Due to the cumbersome geological conditions, almost the entire length of the route was planned on supporting or retaining walls. The design of four bridges crossing the Sava and Savinja Rivers was also a big challenge. In addition to the above, the project members also had to tackle pedestrian areas and bus stops, while numerous utility lines and anti-noise measures had to be installed in the area of intersections and approaches.

PNZ’s planners and designers used different special purpose software applications. At the beginning, they made the base terrain with Civil 3D. Then they started drawing axes using the Plateia program. Due to the complexity of the relief and the location, quite a few repetitions and corrections of the axis and elements were made, so that axes would comply with road design rules and conditions.

They also used Plateia for drawing longitudinal profiles, cross sections and intersections. The design of the railway tracks at the railway station Zidani Most was performed in the Ferrovia software. Ferrovia enables drawing track alignments with the stick method. Also, two curved switches (turnouts) were designed using Ferrovia. This made the work easier for the designers, as the track axes are designed very atypically – without transitions, because of space constraints and small horizontal radius. Some shortcomings of the mentioned software also appeared during the design. Due to the large number of axes and the size of the 3D terrain model, it was very difficult to read the data. In addition, a large number of designers participated in the project, which was a challenge to coordinate, and to make it even more challenging, they used different software tools (Plateia, Civil 3D…). This demanding project was not only a huge challenge for the design team but also for the software developers, as we all wanted to ease the end users experience to the highest possible level.