01365551

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2304-10

http://scholar.google.com...Mack&publication_year=2012

Life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an economic procedure used to compare competing pavement designs over a defined analysis period, considering all significant costs expressed in equivalent present value dollars. A primary input into an LCCA is the discount rate, which accounts for the time value of money and converts future spending into present values. This method makes the future rehabilitation costs equivalent to current dollars and is essential in comparing the cost of alternative pavement designs. All state highway agencies that use LCCA in pavement type selection use a real discount rate, which removes the inflation portion in the present value calculation. The primary reason to use a real discount is that the analyst can use constant (today’s) dollars in the analysis for the future rehabilitation costs. However, the implicit assumption in using a real discount rate is that inflation for all materials matches the general rate of inflation. This study shows that this assumption is not valid and that the inflation rates for asphalt and concrete (the two primary pavement materials) are different. Finally, the paper presents a procedure that highway agencies can use to account for differences in material-specific inflation rates. This procedure escalates today’s constant dollar by the difference between each material’s expected inflation rate and the general inflation rate and then discounts the escalated cost back by using the real discount rate.

01471223

12-2686

English

pp 86–96

2012

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309263030

Print

Figures; References; Tables

Asphalt; Concrete; Economic analysis; Inflation; Life cycle costing; Pavement design

Discount rates

Design; Economics; Highways; Materials; Pavements; I10: Economics and Administration; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways; I30: Materials

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 8 2012 5:11PM

• Application of Texture Analysis and Kohonen Map for Region Segmentation of Pavement Images for Crack Detection
• Approximation Approach to Problem of Large-Scale Pavement Maintenance and Rehabilitation
• Cracking and Rutting Performance of Composite Pavements Under Testing with Heavy Vehicle Simulator: Rubberized Hot-Mix Asphalt with Gap-Graded Aggregates over Portland Cement Concrete
• Developing Pavement Performance Models for Delaware
• Evaluation of Asphalt Damage and Cracking Development with Seismic Pavement Analyzer
• Evaluation of Traffic-Speed Deflectometers
• Evolution of Asphalt Mixture Stiffness Under Combined Effects of Damage, Aging, and Densification Under Traffic
• Field Application of Ground-Penetrating Radar for Measurement of Asphalt Mixture Density: Case Study of Illinois Route 72 Overlay
• Impact of Wide-Base Tires on Pavements: Results from Instrumentation Measurements and Modeling Analysis
• Implementation of Network-Level Falling Weight Deflectometer Survey
• Impulse Response Dynamic Stiffness Decay in Aging General Aviation Airfield Pavements
• Model to Estimate Pavement Structural Number at Network Level with Rolling Wheel Deflectometer Data
• Modeling Pavement Conditions of Multilane Roads with Measured Driving Lane Data
• Probe Vehicles Used to Measure Road Ride Quality: Pilot Demonstration
• Procedure for Optimum Pavement Deflection Test Spacings for Network-Level Applications
• Realistic Life-Cycle Cost Analysis with Typical Sequential Patterns of Pavement Treatment Through Association Analysis
• Relating Ride Quality and Structural Adequacy for Pavement Rehabilitation and Management Decisions
• Rutting of Rubberized Gap-Graded and Polymer-Modified Dense-Graded Asphalt Overlays in Composite Pavements
• Sustainability of Perpetual Pavement Designs: Canadian Perspective
• Use of Falling Weight Deflectometer Data for Network-Level Flexible Pavement Management
• Wavelet-Based Detection of Roughness Progression in Wavebands for Highways in Victoria, Australia