New Procedure to Calculate the Load on the Roadway

Presence of a developed transport and logistics system that provides year-round cargo and passenger transportation constitutes a necessary condition for intensive socio-economic development of any region.The only type of continuum transport capable of providing year-round transportation in natural and climatic conditions of the cryolithic zone, an integral part of which is the territory of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, is road transport.This is due to its compactness, mobility, ease of control and maintenance, as well as to a relatively low price, both for a single vehicle and for transportation services, which in turn predetermines its use for regional and intracity transportation within the permafrost zone.The only condition for effective use of road transport is provision of territories with year-round operated public roads, while their design and structure should correspond to the predicted load from vehicles and intensity of the traffic flow.The Government of the Russian Federation adopted the decision to build an automobile bridge across the Lena River near Yakutsk, which is scheduled to be put into operation in 2024.Accordingly, the problem of assessing the state of the city’s road network in terms of the possibility to process future traffic flows and road traffic organisation considering the design features of city roads, becomes relevant.Calculations of basic parameters of promising cargo and passenger flows were carried out with a new author’s methodology.An extended model served a basis for predictive assessment of the growth in relative intensity of transport flows and loads on the roads of Yakutsk after commissioning of the bridge across the Lena River. A variety of transport and logistics schemes for organising road traffic were considered. The condition and design features of the roads on the selected routes were assessed, and their transit capacity and maximum loads from transport flows that their structure could withstand were calculated.It has been established that the road infrastructure of Tuymaada valley is not able to ensure the transit of promising cargo flows that will arrive to the left bank of the Lena River across the bridge.It has been proved that the only possible solution to the vast majority of the emerging problems related to cargo traffic is construction of a federal ring road, which runs mainly outside the valley of the Lena River.