Optimizing horizontal alignment of roads in a specified corridor

•Solution 27% cheaper than the one manually built by civil engineers.•Bi-level optimization: Derivative-free algorithm for horizontal alignment.•Mixed integer linear programming for vertical alignment and earth-work.•Piecewise linear-circular horizontal; piecewise quadratic vertical.

Finding an optimal alignment connecting two end-points in a specified corridor is a complex problem that requires solving three interrelated sub-problems, namely the horizontal alignment, vertical alignment and earthwork optimization problems. In this research, we developed a novel bi-level optimization model combining those three problems. In the outer level of the model, we optimize the horizontal alignment and in the inner level of the model a vertical alignment optimization problem considering earthwork allocation is solved for a fixed horizontal alignment. Derivative-free optimization algorithms are used to solve the outer problem. The result of our model gives an optimal horizontal alignment in the form of a linear-circular curve and an optimal vertical alignment in the form of a quadratic spline. Our model is tested on real-life data. The numerical results show that our approach improves the road alignment designed by civil engineers by 27% on average, resulting in potentially millions of dollars of savings.