THE INTEGRATION OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND ELECTRONIC 
DATA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT FOR HIGHWAY DESIGN 
Frederick J. Doyle 
Director, Intelligence Systems Division 
Broadview Research Corporation 
When the Federal Aid Highway Act was passed in 1956 it was 
estimated that about $88 billion would be spent for highway 
construction in the next thirteen years. The magnitude of the 
planning effort required for such a program is so large that it 
became obvious that the usual design procedures based on 
extensive field surveys, laborious hand plotting, and desk 
computation would be totally incapable of meeting the challenge. 
As a consequence, even those engineers who had previously 
avoided photogrammetry began to investigate its possibilities. 
It has been estimated that about $200 million would be spent on 
photogrammetry in order to complete this construction program. 
STANDARD PHOTOGRAMMETRIC PROCEDURE 
As a result of these investigations a reasonably 
standardized procedure was developed in which photogrammetry 
played an important role in developing highway designs. The 
details vary from one organization to the next because of 
variations in the aerial cameras and plotting instruments 
employed. But the general plan is about as follows: 
  
Step I -- Area Study 
Small scale photographs and maps are studied during 
the period of basic route investigation. On the basis of 
this study the general area of the proposed highway is 
selected. Only rarely is new photography obtained for 
this phase. 
Step II -- Location Study 
a. A field traverse is run through the area selected 
and stations at about 2000 ft. intervals are 
signalized in order to be visible on subsequent 
aerial photography. Modern electronic instruments 
like the Tellurometer are now employed extensively 
for traversing. 
  
b. Aerial photography is flown at a scale of 800 ft. 
per inch for 8 1/4 inch cameras, or 1000 ft. per