Costs and benefits of highway resurfacing: a case study of Interstate 465 in Indiana, USA

Abstract

Highway restoration projects reduce subsequent agency maintenance costs while providing user and community benefits through travel time savings, safety enhancement and reduced emissions. However, in implementing the project, significant costs are borne by the agency (paying the contractor), the user (workzone delays) and the community (emissions associated with the production process). It is useful to quantify these impacts and to assess the benefit–cost trade-offs that exist within and across the various stakeholder categories. This paper presents a case study that carries out evaluation of a highway pavement resurfacing project in terms of the various costs and benefits that are incurred by three key stakeholders: the agency, user and community. Recognising that most costs and benefits are strongly related to the pavement condition, the paper first determines the impacts of the resurfacing project on the pavement condition. This paper not only provides an assessment of the overall economic efficiency of a resurfacing project, but also sheds light on the trade-offs that highway decision makers implicitly encounter in terms of the stakeholder costs and benefits.