The road network to a country is what arteries are to the human body. The road and highways network serves as a pivotal communication link for people to move from one place to another for the purpose of work, business, agriculture, tourism and recreation, thus boosting the national economy. Improvement in transport infrastructure creates new opportunities by linking domestic and international markets and reducing travel time and cost. Better roads also play a significant role in bringing about prosperity to populace.
The Communication Sector has undergone a massive change over the past few years as more cities pilot smart city initiatives with the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).
Conventional approaches to traffic solutions have been replaced with additional lanes, alternate routes, and modification of existing interchanges with provision of signal free corridors.
With the sharp increase in population, rapid urbanisation and industrial growth, the road transport has assumed greater importance in the modern-day world. NESPAK has its share of contribution to the development and progress of Pakistan in the form of its unmatched consultancy services in the Communication Sector.
At NESPAK, a vast range of services is being offered in the domains of highways and transportation, airports and seaports and harbors. NESPAK has been rendering high quality consultancy services for motorways, highways, flyovers, bridges, interchanges, roundabouts, underpasses, tunnels, farm-to-market and other paved roads.
NESPAK has been contributing to the national development in different ways by offering its state-of-the-art services in the Transportation Engineering Sector.
NESPAK has undertaken a total of 1002 projects relating to the highways, airports and seaports & harbours in Pakistan and abroad. Out of these, 145 projects are in progress. The cumulative cost of these 1002 projects stands at Rs. 8,190 billion.
During the recent years, the Pakistan Government has laid special emphasis on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) under the One Belt One Road Initiative, which holds international importance. It will facilitate China for its access to sea and boost Pakistan’s trade potential by opening new industrial zones along the corridor. NESPAK is playing a key role by providing engineering consultancy services like design and construction supervision for various portions of the western corridor of the CPEC. Out of total CPEC western corridor (3,000 km), NESPAK has been providing consultancy services for around 2,599 km length. So far, NESPAK has been involved in 16 highway projects related to the CPEC.
Another feather in NESPAK’s cap is Lahore Orange Line Metro Train Service System in Pakistan for which the Company provided planning, detailed design and construction supervision services. With a length of 27.1 km out of which 25.4 km is elevated part, the Orange Line Metro Train System is catering a ridership of 245,000 passengers per day. Orange Line MTS has 26 stations in total.
Established in 1974 as Highway Section, it has come a long way by maintaining NESPAK's position as the market leader in the highway engineering consultancy sector. The Highway Section later got re-designated as the Highways and Transportation Engineering Division. NESPAK has kept abreast with the emerging trends in the field of engineering consultancy, expanding and modernizing its services and expertise. It has contributed significantly to multiple projects locally offering qualitative, practicable, and modern and cost efficient solutions to its Clients.
NESPAK has played a major role in the modernisation of Communication Sector in Pakistan and abroad, particularly in the Middle East. NESPAK stepped in the international market by acquiring highway projects in the United Arab Emirates. Since then, it has been actively participating in the Sultanate of Oman in the field of Highways and then there was no looking back. To date, it has worked in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bangladesh, Benin, State of Qatar, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Highways and Transportation Engineering Division is a specialty group within NESPAK offering a wide array of engineering services in the fields of motorways, highways, urban and rural roads, grade-separated interchanges, bridges and flyovers, underpasses and tunnels, pavement and transportation engineering including traffic modeling and forecasting, feasibilities and economic & financial analysis. NESPAK has pooled Pakistan's best skills and expertise. It has one of the largest groups of expert highway engineers in the design of roads and bridges as well as management and construction supervision of road projects. NESPAK has highly qualified, trained and experienced engineers in the fields of highways, transportation engineering, survey, soil and materials, geometric design, pavement design, structural design, contracts, specifications, tender documentation and construction supervision. NESPAK has also been laying special emphasis on energy usage so as to limit carbon dioxide emissions to stem global climate change.
Following is an overview of NESPAK's scope of services and expertise in the field of highways and transportation engineering:
Planning road networks, their interconnectivity, probable use and relative importance. Priority ranking of roads in a road network based on socio-economic factors.
Identification of potential corridors, study and selection of the most suitable/viable route for adoption of the final alignment on the basis of technical merits/demerits, cost-effectiveness and durability in terms of maintenance requirements, impact of terrain ranging from the snow-capped mountains to the areas of moving sand dunes.
Economic studies for assessment of benefits of highway projects as compared to the total investment. Benefit cost ratio (B/C ratio), determining the Economic Internal Rate of Return (EIRR), traffic surveys, analysis and traffic projections over the design life of the project. Feasibility studies of projects on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis where self-financing by the private sector is involved
Transportation system surveys, analysis, forecasting, design, traffic flow control, regulation and administration.
Design for carriageway pavement widths, horizontal and vertical alignments, slopes, interchanges, flyovers, acceleration/deceleration lanes, intersections, traffic islands, channelization and other features.
Design of pavements to determine thickness of road layers using standard empirical methods such as the latest AASHTO Guide and British Road Note No. 31 based on the traffic demand and projections. The design is also checked against the “mechanistic” approach method.
Evaluation of the suitability of soils and materials for highway construction, determining the permeability, shear strength, consolidation, grain size, dry density, liquid and plastic limits, field tests including California Bearing Ratio test, plate test and nuclear field equipment tests. Testing is also done on aggregates, sand, cement, water, steel and bitumen to ascertain their suitability for highway construction.
Supervision of construction activities to ensure the quality conforming to the contract specifications, progress monitoring and coordination between the Client and the Contractor or any other agency involved to ensure timely and successful completion of work.
Undertaking traffic studies to identify the deficiencies and improvements in a transportation system. The studies also include collecting data, projection of traffic volumes identification of improvements required for efficient transportation systems. The need of traffic signals and speed zoning is also part of traffic studies.