Ineco, thanks to its long history and experience in high performance road solutions, carried out the designs that run through the main areas of the country. These designs were characterised by having several access points to many local farms.
The layouts, in which Ineco participated, were optimised following the prescriptions and requirements of The Spanish Ministry of Public Works’ Standard 3.1-IC. This Standard is well renowned and has consistent design parameters to define and calculate high capacity road infrastructure.
Ineco has created drafts of the Santo Domingo–Esmeraldas high capacity road, which is approximately 10 km in length. On the first stretch, designs focused mainly on improving road safety, prioritisation of movements, ordering and regulating all current main line connections. On the second stretch, a new layout design was made using a dual carriageway, by assessing the maximum use of the existing carriageway, with occasional layout tweaks and designing a new, independent carriageway.
Another noteworthy work in Ecuador is the existing road of the E-25 Corridor from Río Siete to Huaquillas, which links the south of the country with Peru. In this instance two different works were carried out. For the first stretch between Río Siete and Tíllales “Y”, the final design of a high capacity route with all international standards was carried out. For the second stretch between Tíllales “Y” and Huaquillas, an improvement to the existing route was designed to make it into a motorway. The works included service lanes, agricultural roads, junctions, enlargements and road safety improvements.
On both designs, along with the engineering designs, the technical, legal and financial structuring of the infrastructure was carried out with the aim of conducting an international bid for tender for the contracting – by collaboration between state and private interests – of the administrative concession for the construction, operation and maintenance of the aforementioned motorways over a 30-year period.
Within the structuring works, a wide-ranging study of Ecuador’s legislative framework was conducted in order to be able to articulate these concession designs, a social cost-benefit analysis of the solutions proposed was carried out, as well as an economic and financial feasibility study and risk study with the aim of proposing solutions that would be attractive to private investors and compatible with the Ecuadorian government’s needs and the financial conditions of the markets.
In terms of construction supervision, among the many routes audited on the entire Ecuadorian road network, one of the most noteworthy designs Ineco carried out was to audit the enlargement and improvement of the Pifo – Papallacta route. This route of approximately 35 kilometres crosses the western part of the Andes, which was a great challenge due to its difficult terrain and reconciliation with road traffic maintenance demands. Additionally, one of the highest-altitude paved cycle lanes in the world was audited.
