The Effect of Incorporating Road User Costs During Construction on Pavement Management Decisions

As and when pavements experience a loss of serviceability engineers attempt to restore them by carrying out appropriate Maintenance and Rehabilitation (M&R) alternatives. For a given set of pavement distress and traffic conditions, it is possible to formulate several M& R alternatives. The costs of these alternatives and the benefits that accrue from them may vary. In order to achieve the best value possible for the public funds expended, a good pavement management system commands consistent and cost-effective decisions with regard to selection of pavement M&R alternatives. For a project to be cost- effective, total costs (agency costs and user costs) should be minimum. The total costs of an M&R alternative is made up of two principal elements: (i) The capital cost of undertaking the work; and ( ii) The cost imposed on road users while the road work is still in progress. Due to limited data on traffic characteristics in a work zone, many agencies including the Ohio Department of Transportation ( ODOT) have not been able to compute the road user costs in a work zone. Currently, the ODOT performs life cycle cost analysis for each M& R alternative. However, road user costs due to traffic delays during construction are not considered. This research was initiated to recommend simple models to evaluate the additional road user costs in work zones which are to be used to compute the life cycle costs of various pavement M&R alternatives. Example problems are presented to show how the pavement management decisions can be affected by incorporating road user costs during construction.