--- title: OpenRoads Designer Reviews meta_title: 'OpenRoads Designer Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 139 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how OpenRoads Designer works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.1 review_count: 139 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-19' parent_category: name: CAD url: https://www.g2.com/categories/cad --- # OpenRoads Designer Reviews **Vendor:** Bentley Systems **Category:** [Civil Engineering Design Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/civil-engineering-design) **Average Rating:** 4.1/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 139 ## About OpenRoads Designer OpenRoads Designer CONNECT Edition, the successor to Bentley’s industry leading civil engineering brands InRoads, GEOPAK, MX, and PowerCivil, is a truly innovative design application, built to address the demands of today’s evolving infrastructure industry. By blending traditional engineering workflows for plan, profile, and cross-sections with 3D parametric modeling, OpenRoads Designer enables the model-centric creation of all your design deliverables. This application supports all aspects of a detailed roadway design including survey, geotechnical, drainage, subsurface utilities, corridor modeling, analysis, and quantification. It is a comprehensive, multi-discipline 3D modeling application that advances the delivery of roadway projects from conceptual design through construction. OpenRoads Designer provides the latest technology and tools you need to efficiently design, model, and produce project deliverables in a dynamic, interactive, and parametrically enabled environment. ## OpenRoads Designer Reviews ### 1. Powerfully tool, with minor instabilities **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christopher A. | Senior Highway Design Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 04, 2019 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Civil Cells - the ability to design standard engineering objects, ponds, junctions and even Bridges, and reuse continuously. Civil cells automatically update from the standard arrangements to specific site information. Drawing Production tools are much better than anything I've seen in other software. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Minor instabilities in the software. My opinion is that these instabilities are due to IT department restrictions applied to company PCs combined with legacy windows 7 usage. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Moving from string based design to parametric object and rule based design. If corridor are designed correctly. 80% of the highway can be designed from rules without user input. ### 2. It is reduces the burden for the accuracy and visualization **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raakulan K. | Engineering Trainee, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 10, 2019 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** As a designer I can assure to bring the exact visual of the design with the software. And drawing tools are capable to get the accurate designs as well. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Addition of new features should be provided on time. And old issues should be rectified. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am trying 3D model to vusualise and have corrections and it is pretty nice to explain the terrains and structures as well. ### 3. Powerful upgrade to the Bentley Civil Modelling Tools **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 25, 2018 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like the stability and speed of Open Roads Designer **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I dislike that some of the tasks that were very easy to do in Native InRoads are much harder to do like using a table to edit a vertical profile. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Get familiar with it and start a small project first **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am trying to create 3D Models of Roads and bu using it I am able to create robust designs. ### 4. Seriously is there a better option? **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tyler D. | Civil Engineer, Civil Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2017 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Most days it's not great but i have used it to place cells in our plans and it allows me to do things much much quicker. But for the most part it's very buggy and crashes a lot. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** It's very very buggy and tends to crash a lot. we've had instances where it crashes by simply hovering over a CAD element. It however is the only thing we can actually use for what we need. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** If you find a better option out there make it known to the world. my guess is that you won't, Geopak works fine, it just really loves to crash often. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's the only software we have to cut cross sections, draw alignments, draw profiles. I will say that I have used it to play many of my erosion control items and when it doesn't crash it does quite well. ### 5. Good potential **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Military | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 10, 2018 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The software is good at modeling different designs and getting accurate quantities. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Many times the restrictions set by my IT department often causes issues with the software. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designing projects such as levees and breakwater. ### 6. MX Road - The only good thing Bentley ever purchased **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alexander B. | Civil Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** String based modeling with code input. Having the ability to code your design greatly improved efficiency. It is the only program with this kind of interface, and it is faster than any other software to design major roads, period. All template based programs pale in comparison compared with MX Road. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Visualization should be improved, as well as TIN handling. If only Bentley invested the time into it, as ANY AND ALL medium to advanced users of ANY software will tell you that coded interface is the best and only way to function, I wish they upgraded this perfect program to a 64 bit engine. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** understand code before using this software **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Major highways. Plan production via input files is the fasted way to operate, and better than anything else Bentley has ever been associated with. ### 7. Bentley InRoads Review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 04, 2017 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Inroads allows for easy and effective alignment and profile creation and editing. Table editing and curve editing allow for alignment and profiles to be designed and edited depending on a variety of constraints. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Inroads, alignments and profiles are not dynamic once displayed. Being an application in microstation, vs fully integrated causes a few extra steps and a lot of extra clicks to view design elements and start tools. Also site grading is cumbersome with feature lines. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Most DOTs use InRoads so knowledge of this tool is a must. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Roadway design and corridor creation is a breeze with InRoads. Also their drafting tools within inroads are effective and simple, once the preferences are created. ### 8. Volume calculations **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brooke P. | Civil Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2018 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like how quick I can preform volume calculations. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Randomly crashes. It happens usually when I'm working with a large dataset but sometimes when it's a small dataset. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Design work for civil engineering projects. ### 9. Useful tool for roadway design **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Austin M. | Associate Highway Engineer, Design, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2017 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Ability to model roadways and other linear roadway features **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** It cannot easily handle skewed features. Disconnect between modeling and graphic display ie graphic features are only outputs. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Roadway design ### 10. Good design tools, but can be clunky **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 02, 2017 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** It sits on top of MicroStation. Doesn't take a lot of computer resources to run. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I don't like how when you select a tool or feature, the software doesn't prompt you to notify that it has been done successfully. You have to follow the "little red box" to ensure you have selected the correct DTM, ALG, etc... Once you know what to look to for, it's fine, but just not intuitive to the new user. This is not only for InRoads, but all Bentley software is extremely expensive compared to it's competitors that offer better features and tools for what seems like a fraction of the price. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** InRoads will eventually go away with the introduction of Bentley OpenRoads, so Bentley is trying to go into the right direction for it's end users and to stay competitive with Autodesk. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** trying to create design content to be used for planning, engineering, design, and CAD production. ### 11. Good/Average Road/Site Analysis Software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kris S. | Civil Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** InRoads is a great program to process any point surveys or 3-dimensional surveys. Very similar to geopak software in the sense you can process and create surface models for any project requiring any topographic features. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Compared to geopak, the user tools and settings can be a bit frustrating when you are trying to develop quality plan sheets and cannot get the settings to work in your favor. Many times, I just opt out using inroads to label any plan notes and just stick to the microstation software because it is easier for me to change the settings to my liking. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** If choosing between Geopak or InRoads, my preference is with Geopak. I feel geopak allows you to work with a variety of different things. As for InRoads, I think it is a good program if you have a simple job where you just need to process surfaces. The user tools are very simple to use. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Good to establish survey data and create any proposed surface model files. I work with a lot of roadway designs and site designs and I am required to create proposed surfaces and profiles for drainage purposes. InRoads allows me to do that. ### 12. Complex and specific tool **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michal K. | Technician, Design, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 03, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I am working with Inroads since before SS and i can see how product develops. The best change for me from previous versions is added graphical template development - very interactive and intuitive. Also comparing to other similar software i like Inroads for its independence from the platform. (Unfortunatelly Openroads environment abandoned this idea, but we will see how it goes) Thanks to this independence i can display what i want whenever i want it. Most tools are easy to use and self explanatory. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I had to setup my preferences couple of times, as there were never good default preferences set to start with. In my opinion without proper guidance and at least basic training its very hard to learn on your own. Road design in inroads has a certain workflow and you have to get used to it. Once you do it feels natural, but until you do its a wall of frustration, as you have to pay attention not only to design, but also to proper setup, preferences, etc. Also annotating cross sections could be as easy as annotating profile as sometimes it is pain. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** This is a bit of warning really. SS2 and SS3 are vey different. In my opinion SS3 is a future of design, but i had little to do with it yet (only presentations and overall workflow) I wouldn't invest time and resources in SS2 and head towards SS3, but again! i have seen SS3 crash on various tasks (like not following workflow - applying changes to horizontal - recalculating corridor and forgetting about superelevetions for example) i also had a word that due to new specific workflow SS3 and Projecwise doesn't go together well. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Once you are fluent with using Inrods it speeds up 3d/2d modelling significantly. What once took days, now it can take hours. There are many tricks to do various tasks. Now if you hit a wall - there are many learning paths, forums, blogs, vlogs, bentley community etc. to solve problems efficiently. ### 13. InRoads for Interchange Design **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ryan Y. | In-Roads Practice Lead / Roadway Designer, Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 02, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like the ability to build pieces of templates, then build full templates using the pieces. The end conditions are also very powerful as you can have multiple end conditions as well as smart end conditions using programming language. For alignments, the regression tools make it quick and easy to fine tune alignments. The ability to have multiple vertical alignments within one horizontal alignment allows for profile options to be explored without running multiple designs. However multiple horizontal alignments will require multiple designs. The Modeller portion of the software is easy to use to build a model and design it according to your site constraints. Point controls, overrides, parametric constraints allow designs to be fine tuned without changing alignments and templates. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** The menu layout can be quite overwhelming as there are a lot of options in every part of the program. For the modeller, a model can quickly become very complicated to work with if too many point controls, overrides, and parametric constraints are used. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Interchange design, quantity estimates, and outputs for construction. We can quickly produce 3D polylines to be used for machine controlled construction work, and 3D models that are able to retain most design connections when alignments are changed. ### 14. Inroads **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Scott S. | Roadway Department Head & Senior Project Manager, Design, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 28, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Graphical interface to create roadway segments for cross section design of roads. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Difficult to create templates to replicate roadway segments created on previous projects. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designing roads, determining drainage concerns and drainage pipe locations. Correctly designing and verifying super elevation run outs. ### 15. InRoads Review **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 07, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** InRoads has features that make designing easy and more efficient. I am able to do my work quickly and discover errors very easily using the tools that InRoads provides. InRoads has a tremendous depth of tools that can be used. It is only limited by the knowledge of the user. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** InRoads can be very difficult to navigate and understand the process's need to be completed to get the desired design result. It takes time to learn all of the attributes associated with a single task, but once everything is in order, the results are worth it. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Look at all products out there, We use both AutoCAD C3D and Inroads. Both have learning curves that the user has to master **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We solve roadway design problems, Roadway design involving geometrics and other aspects contribute to the overall plan for a contractor to Build. ### 16. Geopak Review **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Geopak is great for determining specific point elevations, stations, offsets, etc. which is very important for bridges. The various features allows many ways for checking roadway cross section and plan elements. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** With more complex files, Geopak can cause the Microstation to freeze and exit the program. Geopak can be difficult to learn, but with a good training program it is a beneficial program. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Might be good to take a training course if possible to get the best out of all the features available. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Structural roadway items. ### 17. Regular In-Roads User Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 09, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like the roadway modeler. They have 3 views available as you are looking to model your roadway- cross section, profile, and plan view. That allows you to work in 3 dimensions as you design. Also, the ability to quickly see the cross section views without having to manually cut sections like Geopack makes me much faster to design. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I wish it was more in sync with microstation. I believe in Open Roads when you design an alignment in Microstation it will recognize it in Inraods. It adds several steps to design something using graphics in Microstation and then import that into Inroads. Then when you want to make a change you either work in Inroads or have to delete what you made and re-import it. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** I would recommend waiting for Open Roads to be rolled out and learn using that tool. I think it will be much more efficient and its vastly different than InRoads so I wouldn't waste time learning one thing when the next thing is around the corner. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use InRoads for all our transportation design projects. There are a ton of benefits. After setting up your preferences for a certain client you can use them again and again for profiles and cross sections. Also, we have many methods and systems for designing using InRoads for horizontal and vertical geometry. ### 18. Inroads Select Series 2 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John H. | Project Engineer P.E., Civil Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 03, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Inroads, when used to it's fullest extent and capabilities, can provide all the tools throughout roadway design to generate a planset efficiently. Thus cutting down immensely on personnel costs and inaccuracies. The roadway corridor modeler can generate a 3d representation to within .01' of the entire roadway project. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Legacy inroads or Select Series 2 is a great tool. However Bentley has pushed out Open Roads (Select Series 3 and 4) which requires an entirely new client workspace. As DOTs are slow to adopt this the Open Roads user is trapped and must generate a new work space from scratch without the benefit of past years' config files and .xin. I think Bentley should have been more conscientious of this and utilized the Legacy Style Manager and made the creating of the Open Roads workspace automatic. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I design linear projects mostly which inroads was designed to aid in. The primary benefit of inroads is the model which can be used, once created, to better understand any impacts to the existing terrain. ### 19. Brief experience but valuable design tool thus far. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 06, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** 1. The integration with Bentley MicroStation. 2. The ability to create cross sections. 3. The ability to create profile drawings. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** 1. The somewhat steep learning curve - learning the basics can be a bit tricky. 2. The user-interface - it could be a bit more user-friendly and intuitive (would help with the learning curve). **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Be mindful of the relatively steep learning curve - may need to use additional resources (such as YouTube, for example) to get a better handle on this otherwise useful tool. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Road drainage. Improved storm water management. ### 20. Bentley InRoads v8i **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 03, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like InRoads does modeling and at the same time provides quantities for your estimates. Additionally, information can easily be shown with few clicks. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I don't like creating templates for roadway modeling, there are quite a bit of understanding required for setting constraints. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** For SHA projects, or any roadway projects, I would recommend using Bentley InRoads, only if proper training were provided. If no training, InRoads can be very challenging and will create a lot of headaches, that's from experience. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I work in roadway/transportation, which requires roadway modeling to make sure the our design will work out and in accordance to AASHTO standards. ### 21. 3 years almost daily use of Inroads Storm and Sanitary and other Inroads products **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 02, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The softwarer has good capability, not buggy, easy to show data from model on sheets. Clash analysis feature for pipes is good. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** User interface is difficult / clunky and extraction of reports e.g. to .csv format is clunky. Lack of interface with Revit is inconvenient. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Ensure you understand the capability of the software corresponds with what you are trying to achieve. Check compatibility with other softwares in use on the project. Make full use of automated features and invest time in the learning curve required by microstation / Inroads as it ends up being worthwhile. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Clashes, automated checking, being able to rely on the data shown being current and accurate ### 22. Bentley InRoads **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 04, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The Bentley InRoads tool works well for long, linear transportation projects. It can easily process miles of data and adjust it efficiently **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** It is not as user friendly or graphically appealing as its competitors, especially in the 3D space. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Modelling long corridors and site grading. Works well for the corridors, lacks with the grading ### 23. Highway Alignment design, drainage and utilities design, grading design. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 02, 2016 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** alignment design tools are easy to understand and dtm load times. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** updating design is cumbersome in bentley due to the lack of dynamic labels **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** The switch between SS2 and SS3 is difficult and does not help legacy users with old files. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** grading quantities and site balancing. loading a large model is easy ### 24. User friendly **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hadi R. | Senior Pavement Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Prior to using Bentley Inroads, I used to work with Autodesk Land Desktop Development and later the Civil3D. Having that knowledge starting with InRoads was pretty easy and I should say it's very user friendly. The interactive design of the interface also increase the productivity. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** It's not something wrong with the software but since I am originally an Autodesk user when it comes to micro station I do not like the menus and framework arrangements. I like the autodesk interface design much better, but as I said earlier there's nothing wrong with it's simply a personal preference. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Using the Bentley packages Geopack and Inroads allow presenting the designs in a much more effective and influential form. Employers now have more insight toward the project outputs and performance of the designs prior to job completion. In highway construction projects and specially design build projects, the design and proposal attractiveness can be equally and sometime more important than the proposal cost effectiveness. I believe Bently InRoad give the consultants the upper hand to produce more attractive and influential proposals. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Geometric design of highways and interchanges. Bently InRoads offers a very good visualization tools. Visualizing the design in the surrounding environment allow both designers and employers to verify many of the sustainability elements of the design. This is a program designed for this purpose and It does an absolutely good job in doing it. Years ago I used to do the same job with sketch-up and It was really a pain since sketch-up is a general sketching software. ### 25. Best bet to design for public sector clients **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James A. | Design Engineer II, Civil Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I have experience primarily using InRoads with some exposure to GeoPAK. GeoPAK to me seems very clunky and outdated. It bases everything off COGO and the methodology to me is equivalent to what was cutting edge when computers first were used in drafting design industry-wide in the 90's and manually programing steps was exciting and cutting-edge. While the vast majority of graduating engineering students have experience in nothing but AutoCAD, Microstation and InRoads are becoming much more compatible and comparable to AutoCAD users with each version, reducing the learning curve for new users. There are significant changes between the most recent versions of Microstation and InRoads, improving each time. Those significant changes come with a learning curve, as anything would. The latest release, Select Series 3, completely revises the interface. InRoads becomes part of the task bar, eliminating the need for a separate window InRoads used in Select Series 2 and all previous versions. In advance of learning and using SS3, I strongly recommend switching from tool menus to the task bar layout while you're still in SS2 so you are more comfortable with that approach when you switch. Modeling tools are powerful, especially in SS3, however models can only get the design to a certain point and fine-tuning by hand is inevitable which will probably always be a fact of life. As users gain experience, they learn tricks that can help eliminate surface errors such as around street corners and intersections, islands, and roadside terrain. The OpenRoads system in SS3 is much more streamlined and user-friendly compared to SS2. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** There remains a significant learning curve for recent graduates or new hires whose sole experience is in AutoCAD, and even users switching from GeoPAK to InRoads. SS3 reduced the complexity of steps necessary to complete design tasks, but all the options and steps (a result of the power of InRoads, now OpenRoads) can bog down novice and amateur users until they become more familiar with the capabilities. AutoCAD has many interface features that are much more user-friendly, which are apparently copyrighted because Microstation still tries to incorporate them in their own clunky way (key-ins that are not as easy as in AC). Additionally, too many people choose to tinker with code and create highly customized workspaces. Customized workspaces tend to be problematic and error-prone, and often eliminate standard tools and options built into Microstation and InRoads out-of-the-box. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Spend time learning the intricacies of the program. It is very powerful but can seem complex the first couple times when all you want to do is create an alignment or a roadway surface. As with anything, practice makes perfect. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Roadway and terrain surface modeling and modification. Time savings over manual or more cumbersome methods. ### 26. Roadway Design and Flow **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Peter D. | Senior Highway Designer / Regional Projectwise Administrator, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Using Inroads to help us design roadways can quickly let the designer / engineer model their design against the existing features. It helps streamline the process of when and if retaining walls are needed and how long they need to be. Where drainage concerns could arise and how to correct your design with a flow of having the ability to model the design changes rapidly. Creating new or even recreating existing roadway geometry is fast and easy. There has not been a project that Inroads has not been a major tool and asset in creating designs and meeting the challenges for our clients. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** The fact that it cannot order lunch for the design team! In all seriousness, I find that the earlier versions (Inroads 8.5 and earlier) to be more user friendly and easier to manipulate than the later versions. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** In all of the years I have been using Inroads (23 yrs) this software has always helped me and my co-workers create every design that was asked of us. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to manipulate templates and quickly re-run the model to see where issues could impact the road design, right of way, wetland encroachment, existing driveways, ramps as well as any other connecting features when creating improvements or even from a feasibility standpoint, is a tremendous advantage. Having a 3-dimensional model allows the designers / engineers to quickly assess and evaluate what changes may need to be implemented and let the client know of potential impacts to project without wasting budget and time. The software gives the design team the ability to proficiently create multiple design alternatives that can be compared against one another allowing the client to see more options that may suit their needs. ### 27. InRoads for roadways, rail and utilities **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Orlando R. | Project Manager/Senior Civil Engineer, Government Administration, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 13, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The ease of use to which can adapt to many situations in the workplace. The tools in Bentley InRoads makes engineering design better, faster and more productive. Everything is one click away and beginners can learn quickly to what InRoads has to offer. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** The only issue I might have with Bentley InRoads is that it would seem ideal for staging and designing utilities as well but the tools and what you can do with utilities is limiting. More tools in this field would go a long way and help InRoads become the industry standard hands down. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Please integrate more tools for utilities or have a standalone product for all utilities and not just storm drain and sanitary sewer. There are a ton of utilities in the real world that have different design elements to those of storm drain and sanitary sewer and adding tools for other utilities would be extremely helpful and beneficial to both Bentley and the end user. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a civil engineer in the transportation field and constantly use Bentley InRoads for roadway, rail and utilities design for a variety of projects with different clients and agencies. When creating different alternatives, routes, designs for a multitude of elements, Bentley InRoads is always up to the challenge and makes my job that much easier and reliable. ### 28. Geopak for Civil Design **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Preston K. | Civil Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Geopak is a really powerful software package for civil design. In my experience it is more customizable and precise than Civil3d, but that comes at the cost of simplicity. Proper training is really essential, but provided you have some guidance, there is so much you can do with Geopak. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** User-friendliness is definitely not the strong suit of Geopak. A lot of the nomenclature is not intuitive, and the amount of customization is overwhelming as a new user. It is definitely most useful for someone with a lot of time and patience to dig through the tutorials and training - a luxury I did not always have. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Make sure your clients will accept projects in Geopak. Then, be prepared to dedicate some time to training. It is not something you can pick up just from playing around with. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've primarily used it for linear alignment-based projects such as canals and levees. We used the road tools in these cases, but without any real issues. It was generally straightforward to lay out the alignments and profiles. Surface grading was a bit of a challenge and bit laborious. Basically the choice to use Geopak comes down to what the client wants, and what our people have experience in. In my case, TxDOT uses Geopak, and my PM came up in the Transportation group, so we built these projects using Geopak. ### 29. Bridge designer using InRoads **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Allison R. | Structural Engineer, Construction, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** As a bridge/structural engineer, I use it mainly for retaining walls and bridge alignments. We also have to coordinate with other departments, such as highways or rail, so I like how it integrates with other disciplines. It also allows the user to figure out bridge geometry relatively quickly as opposed to other methods. I haven't used this feature too often, but I like how it can generate profiles for retaining walls, which can then be easily transformed into plan sheets. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** It can be a little confusing when first learning the software. I also am the only person in my department that has any MicroStation knowledge, so no one else can really use InRoads because the rest of the engineers in my department feel that learning MicroStation is beneath them. It is also difficult to check input, and with the rigorous QA/QC standards set forth by most projects, this can create a problem. I think that modifying text scale and what text that is displayed should be easier to manipulate. Sometimes we need to show just a northing and easting, and other times we need elevations for various points that we created. Maybe there is an easy way to change this, but we haven't found it yet. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** It definitely makes bridge geometry easier to compute. When I first started, someone laid out the geometry by assigning cogo points in Cogo Classic, and drew it out in TurboCad. Then someone would have to go through line by line and check all of the cogo point commands. InRoads has sped up the process tremendously. Not to mention the other features that we use, such as wall profiles, and the other features that we have yet to come across. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I think one great benefit of InRoads is that it allows for geometry for a bridge to be determined rather quickly. And once the alignments are created for the bridge elements, the drawings can be generated faster as well. This helps us stay under budget on projects. ### 30. Inroads Daily Civil Deisgn User **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jacob B. | Civil Engineer, Assistant Civil Designer, Civil Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Bentley’s InRoads gives me the flexibility to work the way I want with the power I need to complete my infrastructure projects. Running atop Bentley’s flagship product, MicroStation, InRoads provides complete drafting capabilities, powerful mapping tools, and design automation for civil transportation professionals like myself. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Upon utilizing InRoads V8i as an upgrade from previous versions, I have found that the software has crashed more often requiring time to be wasted to implement the same design again. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Along with Microstation, take your time as a new user to learn the in's and out's of the software to fully utilize all the capabilities. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am primarily using InRoads for heavy highway design with a focus on drainage design, 3D Modeling, horizontal/vertical alignments, x-sections, earthwork and surface grading. I also utilize InRoads in the work I complete for hydrology and hydraulics projects as a water resources focus. ### 31. I am a daily user for transportation related projects. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Megan A. | Transportation Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I think corridor modeler, aside from being quite buggy, does enable the use to produce and detailed 3D surface accurately and efficiently on fairly standard projects. It also enables a user to very quickly get a rough estimate of earthwork and ROW. It takes only a few minutes to make a profile, grab a template often provided by state DOT's, and get a preliminary idea of what a corridor is going to look like. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I do not like how many menu options there are. I wish there was one concise control panel for everything. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Find out what your client wants. That's really the determining factor. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are currently using microstation geopak too design a roadway within predetermined ROW limits. Being able to quickly update profiles and ditch grades has been helpful. ### 32. 20+ years using Geopak Suite **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paul N. | CAD Manager, Civil Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like the direction Geopak is taking the software. Corridor modeling is good, still needs more tools. Since the Site Component has been taken out, there really hasn't been a replacement. This needs further development. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Like any software that has bugs, anything that courses the software to crash is an automatic dislike. The lack of publication and instructions in the help is frustrating. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Get proper training, there is a learning curve. For an engineer at least 2-3 years of CAD experience. for a CAD tech at least 10 years of CAD and good engineering/survey understanding. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Geopak Site and Geopak Criteria had been without a doubt the most used features I have used to solve numerous problems with design and also with creating models for 3D presentations. ### 33. I hope you have a while, because InRoads takes some getting used to... **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brad C. | CAD Engineer, Construction, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** There are a vast array of features that InRoads provides, It allows you to model designs given the existing surface. Once you acclimate yourself with it, you are sure to produce accurate calculations time after time. The trick is finding all the hidden features that make the process fast. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I dislike the complexity of the interface. Unless you have been using the software for quite some time it is hard to pick it up and know what you are doing. Even to shift a pad design 1 foot it takes an act of God, and quite some time. Inroads must be loaded once you are in Microstation and operates as a separate entity. Unless you have someone sitting beside you directing you on exactly what to press it is extremely difficult to operate. Different version create slightly different options that make it nearly impossible to operate without the use of instruction. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** See what else is on the market. Other software might come at a higher price, but in most cases you get what you pay for. Unless you are required to work with this software I would stay away. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** InRoads is primarily used for highway design and land development calculations. ### 34. Streamlined Design Software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carla K. | Engineer in Training, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Having worked with both GEOPAK and InRoads, I much prefer InRoads due to its simplified manner of connecting design information and user-friendly interface, both of which make it an easier product to learn to use and make the design process much more fluid. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** My only qualm with InRoads, and Bentley products generally, is that drawing and item scales aren't dynamic. When adding stations and other alignment data in either GEOPAK or InRoads, you still have to create additional labels of varying scales based on the drawings you're going to produce. This causes not only additional layers and items to be created, but if a design is updated, all scale sizes of labels must be updated as well, which can be overlooked and cause plan discrepancies. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** While many users are acquainted with GEOPAK, I highly recommend switching to InRoads - it's much more user friendly, easier for new users to learn, and overall will save you time & money in workflow. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Oftentimes, the design process takes a long time in GEOPAK due to errors in loading the wrong pieces of the project (working on the wrong GPK file when you switch projects, for example), or having Project Manager settings that contradict your general GEOPAK settings. InRoads eliminates this redundancy and cleans up the project setup, so fewer design errors are made. ### 35. I use Bentley Microstation, InRoads, etc on a daily basis. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nathan D. | Transportation Engineer, Architecture & Planning, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Microstation and InRoads are pretty easy to learn, and the 3D modeling is pretty ideal for civil/roadway design. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** There are a few bugs, but I don't think there's a complicated software that won't have a few bugs. One annoyance that is is especially pronounced with InRoads is that there are not automatic saves, and so changes can easily be lost in the event of a computer crash, etc. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** InRoads is a quality software supplement to Microstation, but it's much easier to learn if someone teaches it to you directly; I remember having a lot of difficulty with the Bentley tutorials. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Civil/Roadway design. Compared to the old style of hand calculations and hand drafting, I can't imagine doing my job without CAD support. ### 36. Inroads civil deisgn user from 2005 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tao Y. | Lead Civil Designer, Oil & Energy, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** Using Inroads for civil engineering design from 2005 in major EPC companies for oil and gas industry here in Canada, I found it is such powerful tools to meet almost all civil engineering requirement to fasten the design process for every design phases. Though the advance corridor functions with flexible constraints control, it generate accurate grading models for design reviews. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** You have to fully understand all settings to get what you need for output for drafting or labeling requirements. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using Inroads to design haul roads, pipeline corridors, tailings ponds, site grading, etc. for Canada oil sands industry. It helps us to easily calculate earth works volumes to help civil engineers to make decision. Specially for fast track projects. ### 37. Great for Productivity **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The ease of using civil engineering principles for Roadway design, the ease of working on Microstation in sync with GEOPAK. A lot of the tasks that would take a very long time can be down fairly quickly, I specially like the ease of computing earthwork quantities, it used to take us a very long time pre GEOPAK days, but now it's done fairly quickly. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Switching between projects is a pain, during my day since I check the work done by my engineers, I'm switching between projects multiple times and I feel it takes a lot of clicks to load up respective job. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** As the Roadway Engineering department manager for my organization I saw an exponential increase in productivity of my engineers, when we started using GEOPAK to its full potential, I would strongly recommend it to anyone. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** The biggest benefit for me is the increase in efficiency and productivity of my engineers, the jobs that were taking us days in the past can now quickly be done in hours. ### 38. Great program with important functions used in horizontal civil design. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The functionality. Not only can it perform virtually any roadway task you can imagine, but it also ties in beautifully with MicroStation. The roadway modeler seamlessly interacts with MicroStation views, and its output is simple and effective. You can also write VB macros that are run through MicroStation, and interact with InRoads data. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Using InRaods to create and update cross-sections is a precarious endeavor. It is extremely powerful, especially with longer projects, in displaying and annotating features/information. However, you need to be extremely careful when updating surfaces already being used in a cross-section set. If done in an incorrect order, it could cause a massive headache. I think this tool should be fixed for a more user-friendly experience. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are solving complicated roadway design issues on a day-to-day basis using the vast pool of tools InRoads offers. The roadway modeler and template creation functionality enables complete project customization. From end conditions and pavement design, to accounting for multiple soil/rock layers in your model, InRoads is your answer. ### 39. I work with InRoads regularly to model road corridors as a civil Engineering designer. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like how stable Inroads is compared to civil 3D. Computer crashes are far and few between. It also is faster at loading large surfaces as well. I like the roadway modeler and all the options you have with point controls to manipulate template. I like **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I really hate working with annotating profiles. Even when I set my styles to look they way I want them to print there are always a few changes I have to make. If there ever is a change to my profiles. I have to re annotate the profile. I also wish things were more dynamic and you didn't have to regenerate your surfaces as many times. I am excited the way Open Roads is moving we are just not ready to make the big switch. If Open Roads help more with plan production it would be easier to move transition from InRaods to OpenRoads . I wish it were easier to work and set up styles. I often get lost in all the symbology styles. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** I would recommend having a good CAD manager that could set all your configuration variables and workspaces to truly save space. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Producing plans for client of projects that we have one. The benefit to using Inroads is the stability. It also helps us in staying efficient in plan production. ### 40. GEOPAK review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gary B. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The best thing about GEOPAK is since lots of people are forced to use the difficult product, there are lots of documentation. Even the DOT maintains a fairly current website detailing how to use its features to produce plans according to their standards. So I like the unofficial support the best about GEOPAK. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I dislike the unintuitive difficulty of the program. Some complex and robust programs one can start using with very limited knowledge because button layout has a certain logic and tooltips are explanatory. One just cannot self teach themselves GEOPAK without very specific guides and instructions. And usually there is only a single way to do something . For example, creating multiple layouts and sheets for a plan set is a very detailed list of instrucitons, and if you miss one command or have instructions for a different version of GEOPAK than the one you are using, so the commands are slightly different, you are basically up the creek without a paddle. The program is very difficult to use without a solid set of instructions. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Make sure you have good instrucitons on how to accomplish the tasks at hand and you should be fine when using the program. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use geopak mainly for bridge plans and road plans. Another benefit is at the various companies I've worked for, there is usually a guy thats very familiar with the program and he can get it to sing. So when a task comes up, having accurate knowledge assists me in creating a set of plans quickly, though there isn't much room for optional embellishments, which is something I enjoy. ### 41. Completed the Bentley training on InRoads, and have since used it sparingly on highway projects **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 10, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** InRoads is a very user friendly program. Learning it takes time, but once learned, the iterative nature of the design process because much easier to handle. The program runs smoothly with Microstation, and the Roadway Designer module on the V8i version is my personal go-to tool when using InRoads. All in all, a very complete, thorough program that allows engineers and designers to get the job done in time-effective manner. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** Much like other Bentley products, sometimes InRoads seems to be running "parallel" to Microstation as opposed to running with Microstation. This is sometimes the cause of many headaches. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Coming form a company that used primarily GeoPak, I would strongly suggest making the move to InRoads. It is much user friendly, work sharing is much easier using ProjectWise. I would warn that younger, less experienced employees may suffer as the roadway design is made so easy that they may lose (or not properly learn) the ability to manually design and analyze. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I work in the Roadway and Highway design team for a medium size company in the south. Being one of the first people in my office to learn and use InRoads has allowed me to become an integral part of the design team. ### 42. geopak civil suite **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ricky H. | Sr. Transportation Technician, Civil Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I like how all the programs work together. I've been in the transportation field for over 20 years. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I dont like the fact that you basically need two screens for all the toolboxes it opens. I don't like that Bentley is starting to take a hit with many of the DOT's because autodesk is giving free product and free training for them to switch, meaning we are having to switch or have multiple expensive software platforms. Very expensive for a company who has 80 plus licenses. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** I suggest looking at what your clients want. Our company is basically moving away from geopak only because most of our clients require autodesks civil3d. The users were quite reluctant but that is the nature of the business. It just sucks when you end up with $60k of software on your computer to do your job. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are a multidisciplinary firm and using geopak civil suite allows all the disciplines to collaborate more efficiently. ### 43. I have been using GEOPAK on Transportation projects for almost two years. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** I love the fact how easy it is to create Horizontal and vertical curves with GEOPAK. Plan, Profile, or Cross Section labeling is also very simple to use, and a huge time saver when doing a large projects. I also try to use GEOPAK for calculating quantities as much a possible. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** GEOPAK can be difficult to learn at first, especially getting all of the COGO and USER Preferences correct when initiating a project. Some of the bugs that come with the program, like freezing up or slowing down when a lot of references are involved in the project. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Learn how to set up the user and cogo preferences well right at the beginning of your learning process. Also get used to using the Project manager. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am involved with the design aspect of civil engineering, not the buisness side. ### 44. I have been using InRoads for almost 3 years on a daily basis. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tri T. | Senior Transportation Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** InRoads is more user-friendly than its similar counterpart such as GeoPak. It is more intuitive and the learning curve is short. It is especially a great application for transportation projects. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** There has been nothing that I dislike about InRoads based of my experiene with the application so far. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Most of my business problems are transportation related. The main benefit that I have gained from InRoads is that it allows me to do a 3-D model tremendously efficient. I can use to visualize what my design would look like in real life. Based on the model, I can modify my design accordingly. ### 45. Excellent Design Tools and Software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dipan S. | Senior Transportation Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 09, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The most comprehensive Roadway Design software which let you manipulate design alternative over other considering the effective cost design. It helps you to reduce for plan production and quantity take-off. You can also create the various reports for Slope Stake Notes for construction. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** I would like to see a feature where you can interactively change the model profile and elevation on 3D DTM date using Point Mouse. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** It is very helpful tools for Roadway Designer and help to understand the design concept as well. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Highway and Local Street Design and help to create a DTM for Proposal Submittal. It help to create the quick design for initial phase. It help to visualize the 3D modelling and able to publish it into Google Earth for easy sharing. ### 46. Inroads Highway Design Solutions **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ron R. | Engineer, Civil Engineering, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 16, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The ability change designs on the fly and push out quick models makes the software valuable in the design build world. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** The ability of some Inroads modeling files and some GeoPak models could be more straight forward. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Get quality training in the software. There are multitudes of tools and functions available to improve your product, but if you don't have the knowledge to access them, you're dead in the water. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are creating highway corridors, from drainage to roadway and earthwork. The benefits of things like conflict analysis and accurate cut/fill volumes are very important. ### 47. Geopak CE Suite is excellent for roadway design but Civil 3D is fastly graining ground on them. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gerardo T. | Senior Project Manager, Civil Engineering, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 10, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The flexibility to work with Raster files, especially aerial pictures. It handles large files with ease and doesn't slows down your computer. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** The work flow is not user friendly. It is more time consuming to go thru the Project manager tool and the use of the gpk file than the AutoCAD Civil 3D. In addition, changes require time consuming updates on multiple files and drawings. NOTE: I haven't work with the latest version of Geopak or with the Corridor Modeler tool. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our firm provides roadway design services for the Florida Dept. of Transportation and other municipalities. ### 48. CAD Platform without the **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matthew R. | Branch Manager, Design, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 12, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The interface is easy to use and customize. The visual based command buttons help improve workflow. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** They have the same command button shown multiple locations. The visualization interface needs work. It is too complicated for the average user. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** When switching to GEOPAK make sure that you get training and be willing to get into the program to explore its multiple functions. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to utilize Bentley GEOPAK to complete design needed for our clients. We have been able to start using the 3D function to provide our clients with a more complete package. ### 49. InRoads products providing complete design solutions for highway infrastructure **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The ability to utilize dynamic geometric design tools with 3-Dimensional models allows for very detailed and efficient project adjustments and improvements. **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** The dialogue boxes can prove cumbersome and repetitive for initial setup at times. **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** Evaluate the tools and the benefits compared to the requirements of your project and the deliverables required by the agency or client you are working for. The tools in Inroads and GeoPAK are becoming similar and the modeling is implemented in both platforms now. The more you dig in, the more you'll like and appreciate the integration that the InRoads tools offer between various disciplines of design including geometrics, modeling, hydraulics, and production plan preparation. **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Highway design and innovations are the main focus. Benefits are realized quickly when working on design-build pursuits where consulting firm teams with construction firms. ### 50. Senior Engineer **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John L. | Transportation Engineer, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2015 **What do you like best about OpenRoads Designer?** The modeling aspect is great. Easy to use and very efficient **What do you dislike about OpenRoads Designer?** the fact that x-sec don't read the same dtm if you rerun it. Meaning, if you cut x-sec with a dtm, you have to turn off the components and surface, rerun the surface in modeler and then redisplay everything. This is a huge pain. InRoads should be able to update if you rerun the surface **Recommendations to others considering OpenRoads Designer:** I have not used Bently's open roads. I think the idea is there that basically makes geopak and inroads functions similar but there are a lot of bugs with the program that my company tried making the upgrade but has since gone back to InRoads **What problems is OpenRoads Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Im in transportation engineering so I use your project every day with alignments, profiles, modeling, x-sec etc ## OpenRoads Designer Discussions - [How do I create a terrain in OpenRoads designer?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-do-i-create-a-terrain-in-openroads-designer) - 1 comment - [Which software is used for highway design?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/which-software-is-used-for-highway-design) - 1 comment - [What is OpenRoads?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-openroads) - 1 comment - [What is OpenRoads designer?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-openroads-designer) - 1 comment - [View OpenRoads Designer pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/openroads-designer/reviews?page=2§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-28+03%3A04%3A16+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=ca6ac5b4-ec21-4ade-aeca-2ca9dd3d12a5&secure%5Btoken%5D=5522f14a88e588ec0cfdbc0d1d6fa6d72360773ffe8d9ad5b095aace8c74443d&format=llm_user) ## OpenRoads Designer Features **Plan** - Documentation - Annotate - Collaborate **Design** - 3D Modeling - 3D Rendering - Drawing - Editing **Construction** - Grading - Earthwork **Engineering** - Hydraulic engineering - Hydrologic engineering - Transportation engineering ## Top OpenRoads Designer Alternatives - [Civil 3D](https://www.g2.com/products/civil-3d/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (290 reviews) - [Autodesk InfraWorks](https://www.g2.com/products/autodesk-infraworks/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (36 reviews) - [AutoTURN](https://www.g2.com/products/autoturn/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (46 reviews)