Sri Lankan Expressways

Sri Lankan New Expressways

Sri Lanka is stepping in to a new era with its technological, economical and social development. So the necessity of modern expressway arrived with the time. Now that dream is about to come true in the near future with the implementation of the Southern Transportation development Project (STDP) that is the Southern Expressway implemented by the government accompanied with the Road Development Authority Sri Lanka. This expressway is constructed by a Japanese contractor “KUMAGAI” under the Japanese funds.

This Expressway is scheduled to be opened for the public by the end of the August 2011. Though it is designed to have 11 interchanges it will first come to the public with 8 interchanges from Kottawa to Pinnaduwa. This runs for about 125km from Kottawa.

Following is a Layout of the Dodangoda interchange

The interchanges are the places where the access has been provided to the Expressway to the passengers form the existing national highway network.

As it was said before, there are 8 interchanges which will be operating from August. those are at

Kottawa
Kahathuduwa
Gelanigama
Dodangoda
Welipenna
Kurundugaha hethekma
Nayapamula
Pinnaduwa.

Interchange at Kualuthara

This comes as a toll road that is, the road users have to pay for using the road. Every interchange is provided with toll booth for exit and entrance. The construction, Operation & maintenance of the Expressway is covered by that income. It has been estimated that nearly 10 to 15 million may cost for all operation & maintenance of this expressway section. At the beginning, the Toll Collection is supposed to be carried out manually and it is Scheduled to be upgraded to a ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) system and Touch and go system in the near future.

This expressway has been designed for 6 lanes and only 3 lanes will be in operation at the first stage.

The designed speed at this expressway is 120km/ph. And the allowable speed limit is 100km/ph.

After the operation is started, there will be emergency services at 24 hrs service such as fire fighters, paramedics, Traffic Patrolling service on call.