Based on the characteristic of vehicle load and the actual situation of over loading of vehicles in China

the quasi-static method that simplify vehicle load as static concentrated load is adopted to analyze the influence of embankment height on expressway settlement of soft ground induced by vehicle load through four engineering examples. The results indicate that the settlement of expressway on soft ground induced by vehicle loads exponentially increases with the decrease of embankment height; and increasing the embankment height is an effective method to reduce the settlement. An optimal embankment height may exist in a range of embankment height. If the embankment height is lower or higher than that optimal one

the highway settlement induced by vehicle load will increase. Whether this optimal height exists or not and its actual value are related to the vehicle load and the soil character.