National Academies Press: OpenBook

Determining Highway Maintenance Costs (2011)

Chapter: Front Matter

Page i
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R1
Page ii
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R2
Page iii
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R3
Page iv
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R4
Page v
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R5
Page vi
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R6
Page vii
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Determining Highway Maintenance Costs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14535.
×
Page R7

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2011 www.TRB.org N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP REPORT 688 Subscriber Categories Maintenance and Preservation Determining Highway Maintenance Costs Cambridge Systematics, Inc. Cambridge, MA W I T H EVS, Inc. Eden Prairie, MN Michael J. Markow Teaticket, MA Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. This program is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of the Association and it receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies was requested by the Association to administer the research program because of the Board’s recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. The Board is uniquely suited for this purpose as it maintains an extensive committee structure from which authorities on any highway transportation subject may be drawn; it possesses avenues of communications and cooperation with federal, state and local governmental agencies, universities, and industry; its relationship to the National Research Council is an insurance of objectivity; it maintains a full-time research correlation staff of specialists in highway transportation matters to bring the findings of research directly to those who are in a position to use them. The program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators of the highway and transportation departments and by committees of AASHTO. Each year, specific areas of research needs to be included in the program are proposed to the National Research Council and the Board by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Research projects to fulfill these needs are defined by the Board, and qualified research agencies are selected from those that have submitted proposals. Administration and surveillance of research contracts are the responsibilities of the National Research Council and the Transportation Research Board. The needs for highway research are many, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program can make significant contributions to the solution of highway transportation problems of mutual concern to many responsible groups. The program, however, is intended to complement rather than to substitute for or duplicate other highway research programs. Published reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at: http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America NCHRP REPORT 688 Project 14-18 ISSN 0077-5614 ISBN 978-0-309-21315-8 Library of Congress Control Number 2011928173 © 2011 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The members of the technical panel selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance. The report was reviewed by the technical panel and accepted for publication according to procedures established and overseen by the Transportation Research Board and approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this report are those of the researchers who performed the research and are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, or the program sponsors. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, and the sponsors of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of the report.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. On the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Charles M. Vest is president of the National Academy of Engineering. The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, on its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Charles M. Vest are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board is one of six major divisions of the National Research Council. The mission of the Transporta- tion Research Board is to provide leadership in transportation innovation and progress through research and information exchange, conducted within a setting that is objective, interdisciplinary, and multimodal. The Board’s varied activities annually engage about 7,000 engineers, scientists, and other transportation researchers and practitioners from the public and private sectors and academia, all of whom contribute their expertise in the public interest. The program is supported by state transportation departments, federal agencies including the component administrations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other organizations and individu- als interested in the development of transportation. www.TRB.org www.national-academies.org

CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP REPORT 688 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs Amir N. Hanna, Senior Program Officer Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Doug English, Editor NCHRP PROJECT 14-18 PANEL Field of Maintenance—Area of Maintenance of Way and Structures Jennifer Brandenburg, North Carolina DOT, Raleigh, NC (Chair) James Carney, Missouri DOT, Jefferson City, MO Edgardo D. Block, Connecticut DOT, Newington, CT Tracy D. Larkin-Thomason, Nevada DOT, Carson City, NV Michael Mattison, Nebraska DOR, Lincoln, NE David Peshkin, Applied Pavement Technology, Inc., Urbana, IL Tammy B. Sims, Texas DOT, Austin, TX Marshall L. Stivers, Infrastructure Corporation of America, Tallahassee, FL Joseph Gregory, FHWA Liaison Frank N. Lisle, TRB Liaison C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S

This report presents a practical process for determining an agency’s full costs associated with performing highway maintenance. The process can be applied to any specific mainte- nance activity and ensures that the resulting full cost incorporates a fair share of both main- tenance program and enterprise support costs. In addition, the report documents the appli- cation of the full cost determination process for a number of highway agencies and different maintenance activities to demonstrate the types of options, exceptions, and decisions that would be needed in order to perform the full cost calculation. The material contained in the report should be of immediate interest to state maintenance engineers and others involved in the maintenance of highway infrastructure. Because of growing demands and resource limitations for highway maintenance, state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other highway agencies often consider non- traditional means for financing and contracting these services. For example, some state DOTs have considered the options of outsourcing and public–private partnership of some main- tenance services. The transportation agency’s costs associated with a specific maintenance activity are usually considered when exploring alternative delivery methods for such activ- ity. However, some of the elements making up the total agency cost of an activity are often not properly considered or, in some instances, are not included. Although knowledge of the costs associated with specific maintenance activities if done by the transportation agency itself is necessary for exploring alternative delivery methods, there is no widely accepted process for determining such costs. Thus research was needed to identify current practices, review relevant information, and develop a rational process that considers all cost elements. Under NCHRP Project 14-18, “Determining Highway Maintenance Costs,” Cambridge Systematics, Inc., of Massachusetts worked with the objective of developing a process for determining an agency’s costs associated with performing highway maintenance. It was also required that the process be flexible enough that it can be applied to any specific mainte- nance activity. To accomplish this objective, the research (a) reviewed available informa- tion relevant to the practices for determining costs associated with performing highway maintenance activities, identified the cost elements required to accurately determine the full cost of any specific highway maintenance activity, performed a preliminary evaluation of available cost determination approaches, and developed a preliminary full cost determina- tion process and (b) evaluated the process using data from a number of state DOTs, intro- duced the necessary changes, and developed the recommended full cost determination process. The process is supplemented with examples to illustrate application of the process F O R E W O R D By Amir N. Hanna Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

using data from six state DOTs as well as examples of tracking maintenance activity costs by three other state DOTs. The full cost determination process will be particularly useful to highway agencies because it provides a realistic estimate of the costs of maintenance activities and helps high- way agencies in evaluating alternatives for performing maintenance activities and making decisions that would result in better use of resources. The adoption of this process by AASHTO is, therefore, suggested.

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 1 Project Objectives 1 Findings 4 Chapter 1 Introduction 4 1.1 Background 4 1.2 Objective and Research Approach 5 1.3 Applications of the Full Cost Determination Process 5 1.4 Introduction to Tenets of Full Cost Determination 6 1.5 Report Organization 7 Chapter 2 Full Cost Determination Framework 7 2.1 Introduction 7 2.2 Definitions 10 2.3 Building the Full Cost Determination Process 16 2.4 Tenets of Full Cost Determination 20 Chapter 3 Full Cost Determination Process 20 3.1 Step 1: Gather and Classify Maintenance Program Activities and Expenditures 21 3.2 Step 2: Allocate Maintenance Support Expenditures to Line Activities 23 3.3 Step 3: Gather and Classify Enterprise Programs and Expenditures 24 3.4 Step 4: Allocate a Portion of Enterprise Support Expenditures to the Maintenance Program 25 3.5 Step 5: Combine Cost Categories to Derive Full Cost 26 3.6 Calculation Options and Exceptions 31 3.7 Additional Considerations 33 Chapter 4 Conclusions and Suggested Research 33 4.1 Full Cost Determination Process 34 4.2 Suggestions for Additional Research 35 References 36 Bibliography 37 Glossary 39 Attachment Recommended Process for Determining Full Cost of Highway Maintenance Activities Note: Many of the photographs, figures, and tables in this report have been converted from color to grayscale for printing. The electronic version of the report (posted on the Web at www.trb.org) retains the color versions.

Next: Summary »
Determining Highway Maintenance Costs Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 688: Determining Highway Maintenance Costs presents a process for determining a highway agency’s full costs associated with performing highway maintenance.

The process described in the report can be applied to any specific maintenance activity and is designed to help ensure that the resulting full cost incorporates a fair share of both maintenance program and enterprise support costs.

The report also documents the application of the full-cost determination process for a number of highway agencies and different maintenance activities to demonstrate the types of options, exceptions, and decisions that would be needed in order to perform the full-cost calculation.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!