This Road Design and Safety Circle was created as put of an interim reorganisation in 2000 from the Road and Environment Circle. It consists of 4 divisions.

The objective of the Road Design and Safety Circle is to contribute to the overall strategy of the Technical Services Wing by:

Developing and monitoring RHD road design standards and managing the design of new and upgraded RHD roads whilst ensuring that all roads on the existing and proposed RHD road network conform to acceptable standards of Road Safety Engineering.

a) To provide Updated Standard (design) Manuals and Technical Specifications and to Develop New RHD Manuals.

b) Annual Accident Report.

c) Road Safety Countermeasure Designs of identified Road Accident hazards.

d) Road Safety Audit Reports on National, Regional and major feeder road and bridge projects.

e) To provide Road Designs of National, Regional and major Feeder road projects and to provide completion audit Reports on undertaken projects.

The Road Safety and Design Circle is headed by a Superintending Engineer (SE) supported by 2 Executive Engineer who are each in charge of Division, namely:

a) Road Design and Standard Division

b) Road Safety Division

The attached table shows the total number of proposed personnel in the circle to be 39 which slightly more then sanctioned strength. The proposed number of personnel of the Circle is 10 Class I, 4 Class II, 17 Class III and 8 Class IV staff.

Certain officers in the Road Design and Safety Circle are to be designated as specialists. Specialist posts for engineers with specialist training are hash marked thus, EE #.

a) To monitor and evaluate the existing RHD standard (Design) Manuals and Technical Specifications and to incorporate for updating these.

b) To Develop New RHD Manuals.

c) To Liase with Police Head Quarter and Ranges for collection of accident data occurred on RHD roads and processing of collected data.

d) To Carryout Road Safety Audit of National, Regional and major feeder road and bridge projects.

e) To maintain Technical directions to the Road Safety Projects (Foreign Aided and GoB).

f) To undertake demonstration project on accident reduction (One or two Black Spot/Year).

g) To Design countermeasures of identified road accident hazards. To design of Layout of road signs and markings.

h) Conduct survey, Traffic data collection and other Geometric Design perimeters and to collect information about the soil, river and water channel (for Design of Roads).

i) To Design Roads in compliance with RHD standards.

j) In conjunction with RHDTC Training of Circle’s Engineers and support staff on road Design and Safety Engineering and build safety awareness and culture in RHD. Each year 5 (five) Engineers should be trained in abroad and each year 18 (eighteen) Engineers and 20 (twenty) staffs should be trained in Bangladesh.

k) To conduct audits (for design and safety) on completed projects and roads to be acquired for others to ensure compliance with standards.

The budget for the Road Design and Safety Circle is shown on the attached table. The budget table shows both the annual operation and maintenance costs and the capital costs of purchasing new, and replacing old, equipment. As not all equipment will be purchased or replaced immediately the capital cost has been annualised depending on the average life of the various items of equipment. The costs shown exclude the cost of personnel who are paid for from other sources.

On this basis the annual recurring cost for the Circle is Taka 120.16 lacs and the capital cost on an annualised basis is Taka 37.10 lacs. A total cost of Taka 157.26 lacs per annum. Of this total amount Taka 98.80 lacs is to cover the costs of studies carried out by local consultants. The costs needed for the Design of New and Rehabilitated Roads Projects are not included in this budget. But this must be reflected separately in the ADP as “Road Design” cost in the Road Projects ADP.

For the first year 2 Jeeps, 1 Pick Ups, 3 Computers, 1 Fax Machine, 50% of specialised equipment and Office furniture is to be procured for starting of the activities and it will cost taka 91 lacs as capital cost.

The Road Design and Safety Circle requires resources for Head Quarters operations and to enable the Circle to undertake necessary surveys, investigations etc. using both the Circles’ own resources and local consultants.

The resources required are shown in the table below: