Onsite Engineering Ltd. used Softree Optimal in a comparative analysis and saw a considerable improvement in the overall cost.
Onsite's client had requested an engineered design of a proposed haul road in the Shuswap Lake area of BC to facilitate harvesting in one of their upcoming forest developments. The design section was approximately 2km with predominantly adverse grades and two switchbacks. Layout personnel had determined the area was overlain by about ~1m of soil overlying competent bedrock. Significant drilling and blasting was expected along many sections of the alignment, particularly around the switchbacks. The horizontal and vertical alignments had already been designed, but they wanted to compare overall costs with those produced by Optimal.
The process identified an optimal vertical alignment within 1 minute and 30 seconds, and a horizontal alignment within 8 minutes. Having never used the software before, the time taken to familiarize themselves with the software and find a solution took approximately 3 hours.
Read about their results in a full case study HERE
Photo and Case Study graciously provided by: Onsite Engineering Inc.