The conventional practice of economic analysis of pavement strategies does not consider the differences in pavement performance levels among the alternatives analyzed. The impact of incorporating intothe analysis pavement performance consideration that explicitly quantifies differences of pavement performance levels in monetary values is examined. Studies have indicated that there exist two components, namely the agency and the user values of pavement performance, that should be included when incorporating pavement performance consideration into economic evaluation of different pavement strategies. On the basis of recently available information and estimates of the agency and user values of pavement performance, it is found that these values are of the same order of importance as the cost items commonly considered in economic evaluation of pavements. Numerical examples illustrate the impact of including pavement performance consideration in the economic analysis. Significant changes to the results ofconventional economic analysis are observed for the examples studied. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1305, Finance, planning, programming, economic analysis, and land development 1991.
Abstract