Model to Estimate Highway Earthwork Cost in Nepal

In a developing country like Nepal, where in most cases projects are externally financed, the minimization of construction costs is the most important factor in a highway project. But the cost estimates to be used at the earliest stage of design, where only a limited data are available in primitive conditions, have usually been based on lump-sum costs derived from historic data that have to be transformed before they can be used satisfactorily. An equation to estimate the earthwork cost in a highway project in Nepal was hence analyzed, and it could be used for the cases in Nepal at the route location stage. The basic input data required were the general topographical information of the area concerned in terms of topographical contoured maps and the possible horizontal alignments. The results obtained from the equation were satisfactory for estimating the earthwork cost.