For transportation engineers, it is often difficult to avert encounters with highly compressible soils. For example, in the case of crossing wetlands it is necessary to consolidate the in-situ soil in order to avoid slope failure of the future road embankments during construction. Pre-consolidation of the most compressible areas is necessary to prevent long term creep settlement. The consolidated soil foundation will increase and preserve the service life of the road pavement, thus reducing life-cycle costs for the roadways and structures.
Access embankments which lead to bridge structures induce critical loads to the subsurface soil levels. The designs for these foundations routinely require intensive treatment to improve the soils.