(I) Expressways on level and rolling terrains

The world’s first expressway in the modern sense was in Germany. In 1932, Germany built an expressway from Bonn to Cologne. Five years later, the United States also built an expressway extending about 11 km. As car was already commonplace in the West, some countries began to build expressways on a large scale. After World War II, expressways quickly developed into networks in Western countries.

By contrast, expressway construction in mainland China was nearly half a century late. In 1984, mainland China began to build two expressways in the modern sense. In June, the state approved the construction of a Class 1 highway from Shenyang to Dalian. It was constructed under the standards for expressway construction. However, as it is unlikely to advance the construction of a 300-plus-km highway as a whole, it was initially planned to divide the highway into two sections and start construction from both ends of the highway. Later, it was determined to apply the standard for Class 1 highway to the project. In December of the same year, the construction of the Shanghai-Jiading highway started in line with the highway standard for a driving speed of 120 km/h.

i. Local explorations of expressways

In October 1988, the Shanghai-Jiading Expressway extending 16 kilometers was completed after four years of construction. It was recognized as the first expressway opened to traffic in mainland China. On June 27th, 1984, the construction of the Shenyang-Dalian highway started, making it the earliest highway under construction in mainland China. In 1988, shortly after the completion of the Shanghai-Jiading Expressway, the Shenyang-Anshan section and Dalian-Sanshilipu section of the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway were completed as a toll road featuring grade-separated junction, full enclosure, and entranceexit control, extending 131 kilometers. The toll road met the expressway standards. In 1990, the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway was opened to traffic, with a total length of 349 kilometers and a design speed of 120 km/h.

While these two expressways, one in south China and the other in north China, strived for the first place, Chinese people were still at loggerheads over whether to build expressways. Given the rare existence of cars across the country, some believed it is a waste to build expressways. It was not until after the success of several “trial projects” that the consensus to “speed up China’s highway construction” was reached, since the results are clear that the expressway shortened the distance from Shenyang to Dalian from about 10 hours in the past to four hours. Connecting all big cities along the way, including Shenyang, Liaoyang, Anshan, Yingkou, and Dalian, the operational expressway quickly alleviated the pressure on local highway traffic.

In 1986, China started the construction of two more expressways. It took about three years to complete these two short expressways. One is Guangzhou-Foshan Expressway, with a total length of 16 kilometers and a design speed of 120 km/h. Xi’an-Lintong Expressway is the earliest two-way four-lane and fully enclosed expressway with gradeseparated junctions in Northwest China. Moreover, as Xi’an is the ancient capital of China and Lintong is home to the world-famous Terra-Cotta Warriors, this 24-kilometer expressway is arguably the first tourist expressway of China.

It can be said that these four expressways are the outcomes of local explorations.

ii. Model projects of expressway construction

Capital has always been a constraining factor in expressway construction. According to the analysis in the 1990s, the cost was about 20 million yuan per kilometer of expressway on a general level and rolling terrains and about 30 million yuan per kilometer in mountainous areas, which is an extravagant project.

The subsequent policy adjustments helped diversify the sources of funds for expressway construction. The Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway, which started construction at the end of 1987, is a crossprovincial expressway partly funded by loans from the World Bank and constructed by the Chinese government. Beijing is the capital, Tianjin is one of the most economically developed cities in the north, and the Port of Tianjin in Tanggu is vital in the north and naturally the maritime gateway to Beijing and Tianjin. Therefore, it is of supreme importance to build the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway. In 1972, China initiated the preliminary study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway. The Highway Planning and Design Institute of the Ministry of Communications, the First Highway Survey and Design Institute of the Ministry of Communications, the Second Highway Survey and Design Institute of the Ministry of Communications (currently known as CCCC Highway Consultants Institute, CCCC First Highway Consultants Co., Ltd., and CCCC Second Highway Consultants Co., Ltd. respectively) also carried out a decade-long survey and design research. In the spring of 1978, the Ministry of Communications sent a delegation to visit Northern Europe. The delegation members witnessed the expressways’ important role in container transportation and supplies distribution at ports. After returning to China, they hoped to start building the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway as soon as possible and complete it within two or three years. However, the project was suspended for a while due to funding issues and disagreement. In 1984, the State Council approved the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway on the shortlist for the loans from World Bank. Subsequently, the Chinese government and the World Bank signed a loan agreement. In 1993, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway was completed and opened to traffic.

Despite the insufficient funds, the technical preparations for the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway were adequate. On the one hand, the builders had dedicated over a decade to technical preparations, conducted six large-scale on-site surveys, and completed many scientific experiments and special studies. On the other hand, the builders could draw experience from the construction of four existing expressways. In particular, the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway that is independently designed, built, and managed by China could provide a wealth of experience and technologies for reference. In addition to introducing foreign funds, the construction project of Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway is based on international competitive bidding, implemented the construction supervision system, and complied with the contract clauses established by the International Federation of Consulting Engineers for organization, construction and management.This project marks the first time China got rid of the planned economy model to introduce scientific management models from abroad to promote the infrastructure reform and establish the system to hold property owners responsible for engineering project, bidding system, and engineering supervision system. Meanwhile China introduced the expressway technical standards from the US, Japan and Europe for research based on China’s conditions. All these efforts contributed to China’s first technical system of expressway engineering. Against the backdrop of inadequate infrastructure for transportation in China, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway became the first one in mainland China to reach the world’s standards and won the first prize of high-quality highway engineering of the Ministry of Communications, China Construction Engineering Luban Prize, Zhan Tianyou Award for civil engineering in China, and the first prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award, among others.

On this basis, China has successfully completed many key expressway projects, such as Jinan-Qingdao, Chengdu-Chongqing, Guangzhou-Shenzhen, Beijing-Shijiazhuang Shanghai-Nanjing, and Shanghai-Hangzhou expressways, which initially alleviated the problem of traffic congestion between central cities.

The preliminary engineering for the Jinan-Qingdao Expressway was started in 1986 by the First Highway Survey and Design Institute of the Ministry of Communications and the Highway Planning and Design Institute of the Ministry of Communications. Its construction started in 1990 and the main line was completed and opened to traffic in early 1994. The Jinan-Qingdao Expressway connects essential industrial cities in Shandong Province, including Jinan, Zibo, Weifang, and Qingdao. This project used the third batch of highway sector loans from the World Bank, amounting to 110 million US dollars. Today, it has become a crucial part of Qingdao-Yinchuan Expressway (G20). Later, with the mounting traffic pressure on Jinan-Qingdao Expressway, another highway was built running roughly parallel to it and was integrated with the Qingdao-Lanzhou Expressway (G22).

The Beijing-Shijiazhuang Expressway is China’s first fully enclosed expressway featuring grade-separated junctions along its entire length. Its construction started in 1986 and it was opened to traffic on December 19th, 1994. It has been incorporated into the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway (G4) and has become a national arterial highway from Beijing to Shijiazhuang and Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Since 1992 the highway construction in China has gathered pace. In 1998, the total mileage of operational expressways in China exceeded 12,000 km, ranking eighth globally.

The early construction of expressways in China largely centered on key cities, extending outward from better-conditioned plains and small hilly areas. We might as well regard these as the first of the Chinese highway series.

Among seven Beijing radials with Beijing at the core, five across the North China Plain may fit into one type, namely Beijing-Harbin Expressway (G1), Beijing-Shanghai Expressway (G2), Beijing-Taipei Expressway (G3), Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao (G4), and Beijing-Kunming Expressway (G5). This expressway type is also concentrated in the Middle-lower Yangtze River Plain, the Pearl River Delta, the Northeast Plain, the Sichuan Basin, and the Guanzhong Plain.

Judging from ensuing operations, the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway and the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway prepared a systematic technical system for the expressway construction in China. Some expressways became model projects for the construction of high-grade highways in China. Having been opened to traffic for years, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway maintains the perfect condition of the road surface, with no evident cracking, raveling, deformation, or any other distress. The Beijing section of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway, constructed by the CCCC First Highway Engineering Group that’s mentioned earlier as the first highway construction team in New China, has not had any quality problems since it was put into service in 1990. During the overall maintenance of the wearing course in 2003, 6.5 kilometers of the expressway reached the upgrading standards with no need for any repair. The maintenance cost of Qing zhou-Weifang section along the Jinan-Qingdao Expressway has been zero since it was opened to traffic in 1993.

iii. Upgrading of expressways

With the rapid development of China’s economy, some existing expressways encountered a new problem. Expressways constructed in the early stage were generally two-way and four-lane, which could no longer meet the rapidly growing traffic demand. Under such circumstances, the highway upgrading project has become a priority. Chinese expressway builders have created a great many distinctive cases in this regard.

The upgrading project started from the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway, the first expressway in the modern sense in mainland China, in May 2002. After the completion of the project in August 2004, the expressway was upgraded to eight lanes. This upgrading project has been distinctive in the creative use of modified asphalt on the surface along the whole line. Moreover, the lanes for vehicles were separated from each other based on driving speed and vehicle model, with separate lanes for large trucks and passenger cars.

The Jinan-Qingdao Expressway running from west to east of Shandong Province has been quite a busy “golden path.” Therefore, it is crucial to minimize the upgrading project’s impact on traffic. The builders adopted the full-width seamless forming technology of asphalt pavement for the surface course of the main line, and the full face single machine for 18.75 meter-wide four lanes was used for full-width paving to achieve a result of “straight slope horizontally and no joints vertically.”

iv. Continuous research on asphalt

There is no doubt that the expressway integrates all manner of modern transportation technology. From preliminary engineering to earthworks, pavement, construction machinery, bridges, and operation management, expressway construction needs the support of advanced technology in all aspects. Among them, asphalt, a seemingly humble building material, has experienced continuous technological innovation.

In the 1980s, highway pavement technology was listed as a key research project in China’s 7th Five-Year Plan. During the operation of expressways, many faced the problem of pavement cracks. When the cracks are filled with water, the pavement will be damaged. This is called the “water damage.” In addition, rutting is another problem to be solved on bituminous pavements.

The key to solve these problems is to add different materials to the asphalt, giving rising to 20-plus bituminous concrete construction techniques, such as modified asphalt, drainage, rubber, mosaicking,coloring, and flame retardant. In 1998, the CCCC First Highway Engineering Group pioneered in applying the new large-grain and Bonifibers-containing bituminous concrete technology. The bituminous concrete mixed with Bonifibers shows reduced deflection, enhanced rebound, great anti-rutting capacity, and strengthened ability to resist and delay cracks, thereby extending the life of the bituminous concrete pavement. In 2001, the flexible colored pavement of the Huandao (or Island Ring) Road in Xiamen was the pioneering work of the colored asphalt pavement in China. In 2004, the first porous asphalt mixture pavement was laid on the Nantong section of Yancheng-Nantong Expressway in Jiangsu Province. This pavement engineering technology increased the cohesion and flexibility of the asphalt pavement through different additives, ensuring sufficient strength and durability of the pavement. In addition, the noise generated by the contact between the tire and the road surface is reduced by the pores, and the phenomena of tire splash and water slip are almost eliminated. Later, rubber asphalt and flame-retardant asphalt began to be widely used. The asphalt pavement mixed with rubber powder solves the problems of water seepage and roadbed damage facing ordinary asphalt pavements, increases the friction with the tires, improves driving comfort and safety, and shows excellent resistance against high temperature and aging, and helps to dissolve waste tires.

Expressway construction needs a massive amount of bituminous materials, generating much waste. Many countries in the world have been exploring effective technologies for reclaiming asphalt for a long time and have formed a variety of increasingly mature processes and equipment. With the development of high-grade highways with bituminous pavement in China, a slew of high-grade highways have entered or will enter a period of maintenance and upgrading, generating lots of waste of asphalt mixture from excavation and milling. It raises a new question about how to recycle bituminous pavement materials. If they can be put into effective use through appropriate recycling methods, enormous economic and social benefits will be produced. The recycling technology of bituminous pavement means mixing the excavated, recycled, crushed, and screened materials from the old bituminous payment with the regenerating agent and new bituminous materials in a particular proportion so as to produce a material that meets the desirable standards for pavement performance and can be used as a surface. In a lot of engineering practice, builders began to study the use of old milled materials. The research outcome of the CCCC Second Highway Engineering Co. Ltd. was first put into practice in the Xi’an-Yanliang Expressway rehabilitation project. Later, the foamed asphalt cold recycling technology succeeded in the Weinan-Tongguan Expressway upgrading project.

Later, the expressway construction in mountainous areas developed in full swing, posing higher requirements on asphalt. In 2001, the Highway Research Institute of the Ministry of Communications led the project of the Technical Research on the Use of Waste Rubber Powder on Highway Construction in western China. A comprehensive and systematic experimental research was conducted on the pavement performance and mechanical properties of rubber asphalt and rubber powder asphalt mixture. In July 2007, the Ministry of Communications decided to build the Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway into a rubber asphalt technology demonstration project.

Some sections of the Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway are paved with rubber asphalt. The addition of rubber power to the asphalt increases the friction between pavement and tires, thereby improving the comfort and safety of driving, reducing the noise of vehicles passing by, and effectively addressing water seepage on the ordinary bituminous pavement. Based on tests and construction, the project technicians summed up three techniques, namely “high-temperature mixing, high-temperature paving, and high-temperature rolling.”

China’s bituminous pavement technology has continued to make new progress, ranging from the bituminous concrete pavement reconstruction on Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway, the application of SBS modified asphalt to the concrete pavement of the Lianyungang-Xuzhou Expressway, the construction of OGFC drainage pavement of Yancheng-Nantong Expressway in Jiangsu Province, to the extensive application of techniques for rubble asphalt pavement on Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway.