Road Survey and Assessment for Scenic Route Project

Abstract

Scenic routes are roads that pass through areas with unique beautiful scenery or specific value. Department of Rural Roads, Ministry of Transportation, has a mission to improve and enhance rural highway standard, as a part of its integrative development towards better transportation, tourism, and urban development. With many potential scenic routes but limited yearly development budgets, the objective of this research was to develop the methods for systematic survey and assessment, in order to create a database of scenic routes in Thailand as well as their attributes. Initially, 40 rural roads were selected for survey and assessment. There were five parts of data collection which are: 1) basic data; 2) intrinsic quality or scenic route value; 3) road network and safety standard; 4) Influencing factors for route potential; and 5) risk factors and negative impact. In addition, this research also develops criteria for road assessment and ranking, following data collection. Each criterion contains different point due to its relevance to scenic route. Ranking by total assessment score and other factors may be considered. This process helps in the identification of promising rural roads for scenic route development project.