25 Years of CARD/1 in the field

The opening of the north and west bypass roads has significantly reduced Mutlangen's through-traffic, thus removing a tailback-creating bottleneck. Mutlangen lies at the junction of three regional connecting roads: the B298 from Schwäbisch Hall, the L1155 from Welzheim-Alfdorf and the L1156 from Ruppertshofen-Lindach.

Double Relief

A 1.2km stretch of road was expanded to create the new north bypass road, which joins the L1156 500m east of Mutlangen at a newly-built roundabout. This building project meant that 300m of the L1156 had to be rebuilt to join the local through road.

A slip road joins the newly-built west bypass road B298, which was constructed as an at-grade intersection with traffic lights according to the basic form 1. 100m east of this slip road, another at-grade intersection was built according to the basic form 1 to join Mutlangen to the west and to provide access to a service station and a car dealership.

New Roundabout

One particularly challenging task was to integrate the planned 34m ø roundabout harmoniously into the extremely hilly surrounding terrain. Yet despite the considerable topographic height differences it was completed extremely successfully. And as improved road-user safety was demanded, the intersection was designed as a roundabout. Indeed the use of traffic islands in the approach roads as an aid to crossing much improved the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and, especially, school children from the suburb Schwäbisch Gmünd-Lindach.

Exemplary Drainage

High standards were demanded of the drainage system. On the one hand, guaranteed diversion of the large volume of surface water from the northerly catchment areas was required. And on the other, surface water from the roads had to be drained separately into a new rainwater treatment basin. To stop more water than normal from flowing into the Haldenbach Stream, it was necessary to construct a catchment basin as an earth reservoir. Here again CARD/1 proved itself to be a powerful planning tool for drainage tasks.

Project Facts:

• Mutlangen north / west bypass roads
• Construction volume: €23m Federal, €2m local government
• Total length: west bypass 2.5km, north bypass 1.2km
• Opened: Autumn 2005