Cut and fill

The technique aims to minimise the effort of relocating excavated material while also taking into account other constraints such as maintaining a specified grade over the route.

Conversely, noise pollution is mitigated by cut sections since an effective blockage of line-of-sight sound propagation is created by the depressed roadway design.

Fills can also be used to cover tree stumps, rocks, or unstable soil, in which case material with a higher bearing capacity is placed on top of the obstacle in order to carry the weight of the roadway or railway and reduce differential settlement.

[citation needed] It was later applied in the construction of new dwellings for returning veterans in Ireland at the end of World War II.

A simple approach involves defining different earthworks features in a computer program and then adjusting elevations manually to calculate the optimal cut and fill.