This Interim Technical Bulletin recommends procedures for conducting Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) of pavements, provides detailed procedures to determine work zone user costs, and introduces a probabilistic approach to account for the uncertainty associated with LCCA inputs.

Life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an engineering economic analysis tool useful in comparing the relative merit of competing pavement design alternatives. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation shares their experience with LCCA.

Featuring sixteen technical papers and two keynote addresses presented at the August 2000 conference in Honolulu, this book covers a range of studies on life-cycle cost analysis, design, maintenance, and management of civil infrastructure systems. Topics include conceptual design of structural syste

Given the aging of highway pavements, high traffic levels, and uncertainty of sustained preservation funding, there is a need for balanced decision-making tools such as LCCA to ensure long-term and cost-effective pavement investments. It has been shown in past research that more effective long-term pavement investment could be made at lower cost using LCCA. Current LCCA-based pavement design and preservation practice in Indiana could be further enhanced by due consideration of user costs. Also, the existing FHWA LCCA software could be further enhanced for increased versatility, flexibility, and more specific applicability to the needs of Indiana, particularly with regard to treatment cost estimation and development of alternative feasible preservation strategies (rehabilitation and maintenance types and timings). The study documented/developed several sets of alternative pavement design and preservation strategies consistent with existing and foreseen Indiana practice. The preservation strategies were developed using two alternative criteria – trigger values (pavement condition thresholds) and predefined time intervals (based on treatment service lives) and are intended for further study before they can be used for practice. These strategies were developed on the basis of historical pavement management data, existing INDOT Design Manual standards, and a survey of experts. The study also found that with a few enhancements, FHWA’s current LCCA methodology and software (RealCost) could be adapted for use by INDOT for purposes of decision support for pavement investments and proceeded to make such enhancements.

This synthesis will be of interest to pavement designers, maintenance engineers, and other concerned with selection of pavement designs and pavement rehabilitation alternatives. Information is presented on how life-cycle can be used to select the alternative that is least expensive over time.

This engineering bulletin presents the concepts of Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) for the purpose of comparing equivalent competing pavement design alternatives on an economic basis. All of the factors that should be considered in an economic analysis are explained, and guidance is given on the selection of values for LCCA-sensitive factors. Examples of three different analyses are given: highway, county road, and city street. Advanced LCCA techniques are discussed, including the impacts of pavement type selection on roadway network. Finally, life cycle cost and pavement performance studies are summarized, showing the benefits of concrete's low life cycle cost and other economic benefits.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains software, Guidance manual, User manual, and appendixes to report.