Road network connectivity improves socio-economic development and functionality asrnwell as quality of life through enabling sustained and all-inclusive growth. It also enhancesrnmobility of people and goods providing access to market - value chain and services on toprnof creating an opportunity to discover our most valued resources such as land. However,rnpractical aspects of road network optimization require designing best route alignmentrnselection. Usually, route alignment selection is governed by many factors. Multi-criteriarndecision analysis is well adopted method that considers the effect of various factors suchrnas engineering, social, economic and environmental factors on route planning. The aim ofrnthis study is to use a multi-criteria approach specifically Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)rnpairwise compression analysis for route planning that connects Dabat and Keraker townsrnlocated in northern region of Ethiopia. The operations to select the least cost route dependrnon the effective collection, processing, storing and analysis of spatial data such as slope,rndrainage, land use, soil type, geology, existed road and drainage. The weight overlayrnanalysis was considering seven factors that affect route planning. The value of the factorrnis unique because of distinctiveness of geographic, socio-economic, and environmentalrnsituations of the study area. The results suggest that the first governing factor for the routernselection in the study area is slope. While fault and soil are the second and third mostrngoverning factors for the road alignment selection, respectively. The length of thernproposed route is 65 km compared to the existing road of 90 km length. The new alignmentrnis 34 km shorter than the existing road, implying the novelty of the multi criteria approach.