Continuously Reinforced Concrete Inlay at Townhill Compulsory Truck Stop

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the construction of a continuously reinforced concrete inlay at the compulsory truck stop on an interstate freeway: National Route 3, Section 3, km 20.0. The truck stop is situated in a truck lane on the southbound carriageway of the freeway, just before Pietermaritzburg in the province of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa. The existing pavement had failed and became unsafe. The trucks moving over the rocking concrete slabs generated so much noise that people living close to the truck stop started to complain. This section of the freeway carries close to 2 850 heavy vehicles (>16 ton) per day, adding up to approximately 2 million tons per month. Due to the steep (8%) downward gradients, the trucks have to come to a complete stop, before proceeding downhill in their lowest gear. The contractor devised an innovative method for accommodating the heavy vehicle traffic, causing the least disruption to both the heavy and light vehicles, during construction. Simultaneously the arrestor bed adjacent to the truck stop needed maintenance and a temporary arrestor bed facility had to be reinstated for the duration of the contract. This paper will present inter alia the background to the investigation, the traffic analysis carried out, rehabilitation design and the analysis output to reconstruct a highly sensitive heavy-vehicle-traffic safety facility.