**1. Introduction**

Transport has now become an important factor in determining the housing and workplaces of the largest segment of society. Transport has thus become an essential element in determining land uses; it is not affected by land uses only but affects them. The transport activities directly or indirectly lead to the transfer of civilization and civil landmarks to the farthest points in the country, open to human societies' paths to flow of science and knowledge, improve the health and social conditions and enjoy the joys of life and nature, and expand the perceptions of these communities and openness to ensure stability and development. In light of this, the efficiency of the transport system and roads requires continuous planning and design for the road, especially with respect to the design of engineering elements of the road, in order to provide the movement of society and maintenance at an acceptable level.

The engineering design of the road is defined as the process of finding the engineering dimensions of each road and arranging the visual elements of the road such as the path, distances of sight and passing, width, slopes, curves, super elevation, and other engineering characteristics. The horizontal and vertical design elements of the road are considered the most important elements of road design because their minimum limits are the basic for the design speed and the ruling slopes.

The horizontal and vertical roads' elements, the configuration of road path and grade affects safe operating speeds, and sight and passing distances for highway and roads' capacity establish the general character of a highway, more than any other design consideration. These components will significantly affect the safety, operational efficiency, and aesthetics of the highway.

Therefore, this chapter will focus on the design of the main elements of a road linking the city of Mosul and Makhmour (Northern Iraq) district south of Mosul. The surveying data was prepared by the Ministry of Municipalities for the proposed route of this road using a differential GPS device.

These surveys are a 900-m strip survey of the proposed route of the Mosul-Makhmour highway with a length of up to 20 km. Field surveying data will be used to prepare a geometric design for the proposed road linking for the two regions by using AutoCAD Civil 3D Land Desktop program and in accordance with international standards.

Initially, a path was proposed for this road depending on spatial analysis by GIS program to get optimum path linking between two areas. The stations, the type of road, the number of its lanes, its dimensions, its horizontal and vertical elements, and the slopes were defined according to the main design criteria of urban roads. The results were illustrated by longitudinal and cross-sectional plots showing the changes in the natural shape of the ground and all the elements of the horizontal and vertical curves of the road. After which, the volume of the earthworks was calculated for excavation and burial. Thus, a road connecting two urban areas was achieved in a manner that does not cause accidents and achieves the smooth flow of vehicles by making all elements of the road consistent with the expectations of drivers to avoid sudden changes in design specifications. Finally, all the designed road data were exported to the GIS program to build an integrated database for this road that can be linked to the rest of the city network, as well as all spatial analyses and network analyses.
