Samos Karlovasi National Road - Aghios Constantinos Section - Samos Island

The main ring artery of Samos Island is the National Road that starts and ends in Samos and Vathi. It runs through Pythagorion village in the south, it then turns to the northwest, towards Karlovasi, and finally it follows the north coastline to the east from Karlovasi back to Vathi. In general, the National Road Samos-Karlovasi presents a lot of problems in many locations, considering its geometrical properties and its alignment. Such a problematic section is the part of the road that passes in front of Aghios Constantinos village, which needs general improvements so as to upgrade its functionality and safety level.

In view of the above, the former Prefecture of Samos, following a contest in 2004, assigned to a consortium of consultant engineers the design of the respective road improvement works. Three different solutions were proposed for the alignment of the road and the selected one was the keeping and improvement of the existing coastal road. The selection was based on environmental and economic criteria. The new works included the design of the coastal protection of the road sea side by using quarry rocks and concrete blocks (acropodes). Consultant engineer Albert Paul Yamin, a member of above consortium and responsible for marine works, designed the protection works and the whole study was completed in 2014.

Project facts:

• Construction cost: 7,117,000€
• Protection of totally 1,316.9m long section of the National road, which was subdivided into five different locations A, B, C, D and E with respective lengths of 105.0m, 311.0m, 468.80m, 140.1m and finally, 292.0m
• The implemented armoring was of four (4) different types. Their placement depended on the depth of the sea in each protected area
• The types of armoring Nos 1, 2 and 3 consisted completely of quarry rocks
• The type of armoring for section 4 was implemented for sea depths that exceed 3.0m and consisted of concrete blocks (acropodes)