Recipient: Applied Research Associates, Inc.
Grant: $108,700
Completion: 2022
Project Summary: 25
Background and Need
Life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is a tool for comparing the economic performance of future pavement choices and for evaluating past choices. LCCA for evaluating future pavement costs are often based on a record of past construction and maintenance costs. If few or none exist, then assumptions are made regarding these costs supported by rationale.
LCCA considers initial construction costs plus all maintenance costs expected (or done) between major pavement rehabilitations. Future maintenance costs are discounted to establish their present value (aka present worth) since money spent in the future are worth less than today’s money. Called the discount rate, present value is defined as the cost of borrowing money, expressed as an interest rate for borrowing money, minus the rate of inflation. For years, road agencies often use 4% as the discount rate.
The need for this project emerged from a lack of LCCA for interlocking concrete pavements (ICP) for municipal streets as well as software tools to conduct such analyses.
Four reports on the above studies can be accessed online:
Interlocking Concrete Pavement Life-Cycle Cost Comparison Tools
Sidewalk Pavement Life-Cycle Cost Comparison Tools
Impact of User Delay on Pavement Life-Cycle Cost
Comparison of Utility Cut Impacts on Pavement Performance