Under the prevailing conditions of financial stringency and competitive pressure, the analysis of many highway-service decisions warrants multidisciplinary collaboration. Issues of investment, performance analysis, as well as cost and productivity measurement, require broad-ranging data and tools. The two professions with congruent interests and potentially complementary skills in this area are highway engineers and management accountants. This chapter aims to foster this working partnership and the attainment of improved value for money outcomes by building an integrated platform of understanding of the issues and available tools. In the interests of enhanced communication with the public, an ancillary objective is to give interested stakeholders a well reasoned wider view of issues that are important at the highway-network level. The sections that follow provide an integrated framework of the highway management task set, introduce new tools for analysis and appraisal of highway policy and practices, and illustrate important issues by means of case studies set in New Zealand of structural change and highway cost assessment.
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