This system is basically used to decide the priority among various proposed highway alignment, It depends upon length of road, population, production etc.
The
factors which are taken for obtaining the utility per unit length of road are:
- Population served by the road network
- Productivity served by the network
- Agricultural products
- Industrial products
Steps to find maximum utility per unit length :
1. Population Unit :
Since the area under consideration consists of number of towns and villages with different different population range this all are grouped into some convenient population ranges and some reasonable utility units are assigned to each group of population.
2. Productivity Unit :
The total industrial products and agricultural products served by each road system are to be worked out, The productivity served may be assigned appropriate values of utility unites per unit weight.
3. Utility or Best Road Length :
The total utility of proposed alignment is found out by adding both Population Units and Productivity Units. Then the total utility units are divided by the total road length of each system to obtain the utility rate per unit length.
Rules to Decide the Utility Values :
1. Provide a utility value of 0.5 to lowest population range group and increase the utility value in multiple of two as the population range group increases i.e. 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32,..................etc.
2. Provide the utility value of 1 to production but if Agricultural and Industrial Productions are compared then assign utility value of 1 to agricultural production and 10 to industrial production.
Lets solve the problem,
Priorities the following road proposal based on the utility value,
Proposed
Road
|
Length (km)
|
Number of
villages with Population ranges
|
Industrial
Product
|
|||
1001-2000
|
2001-5000
|
5001-10000
|
> 10000
|
|||
A
|
250
|
150
|
169
|
78
|
1
|
210
|
B
|
300
|
301
|
142
|
64
|
3
|
240
|
C
|
350
|
289
|
99
|
49
|
1
|
320
|
D
|
400
|
421
|
131
|
51
|
4
|
340
|
Solution:
step 1: Assign the utility value:
Proposed
Road
|
Length (km)
|
Number of
villages with Population ranges
|
Industrial
Product
|
|||
1001-2000
|
2001-5000
|
5001-10000
|
> 10000
|
|||
A
|
250
|
150
|
169
|
78
|
1
|
210
|
B
|
300
|
301
|
142
|
64
|
3
|
240
|
C
|
350
|
289
|
99
|
49
|
1
|
320
|
D
|
400
|
421
|
131
|
51
|
4
|
340
|
Utility
Value
|
0.5
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
4.0
|
1
|
|
Step 2: Calculate the utility of each proposed road,
For A,
= [(0.5x150)+(1.0x169)+(2.0x78)+(4.0x1)+(1x210)] / 250
For A = 2.456
For B = 2.241
For C = 1.901
For D = 1.998
So we have to give high priority to road having high utility value,
A>B>D>C
