The Bang Na Expressway (full name: Bang Na – Bang Phli – Bang Pakong Expressway), officially Burapha Withi Expressway (, ''lit. Road to the East''), is a six-lane elevated highway in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. It is a

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

running above National Highway 34 (Debaratna Road, Bang Na–Trat Road) and is owned by the Expressway Authority of Thailand (EXAT).

History

The Bang Na Expressway was conceived by the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (ETA). The structure was built using a design-build contracting method. The columns and superstructure were designed by

Jean M. Muller Jean Muller (May 25, 1925 – March 17, 2005) was a French bridge engineer who focused on design and construction of concrete bridges. Early career Born in Levallois-Perret, France, Muller attended the École centrale Paris, École Centrale des Ar ...

(U.S.) and the alignment and foundations were designed by Asian Engineering Consultants (Thailand). The owner's designer and engineer was the late Louis Berger of the

Louis Berger Group Louis Berger (formerly known as Berger Group Holdings) is a full-service engineering, architecture, planning, environmental, program and construction management and economic development firm based in Morristown, New Jersey. Founded in 1953 in H ...

and the project was built by a joint venture of Bilfinger & Berger (Germany) and Ch. Karnchang (Thailand). It took of concrete to build the bridge. The bridge was completed in January 2000. The expressway was opened in its entirety on 7 February 2000.

Structural description

The highway is

elevated An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the Track (rail transport), tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concre ...

onto a

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

that has an average span length of . It is a

box girder bridge A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beam (structure), beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite ma ...

. There are two toll plazas on the elevated structure where the structure must widen to accommodate twelve lanes. The toll system is done by Kapsch TrafficCom AB (Sweden).

Route

This expressway has toll plazas for both entry and exit. This table only displays toll plazas for entry onto the expressway.

Records

The world's longest car bridge, the Bang Na Expressway held the title of the world's longest bridge from 2000 until 2008. Today, it is the seventh longest bridge in the world.

References

External links