Enhancing life cycle cost analysis with a novel cost classification framework for pavement rehabilitation projects

Ahmed Abdelaty, Hyungseok David Jeong, Bryan Dannen and Francis Todey

Construction Management and Economics, 2016, vol. 34, issue 10, 724-736

Abstract: Life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) procedures have been used over the past decades to justify the choice of one pavement design alternative over the others. However, many ambiguities associated with the life cycle cost input values, such as the discount rate and future cost estimates have questioned the credibility of the analysis results. Another unrecognized source of errors in pavement LCCA is the misunderstanding of pavement treatment costs when historical costs are typically used for estimating those costs. The historical costs of pavement rehabilitation projects typically include a significant amount of non-pavement-related costs, which may result in a wrong LCCA if not treated appropriately. This paper addresses this specific point of error and proposes a solution to eliminating this error by using a novel cost classification framework that successfully differentiates mainline roadway costs from non-pavement cost items. A case study using Monte Carlo simulation is conducted to evaluate the probabilistic LCCA results. The results of the case study indicate that the conventional approach of using total rehabilitation project costs in LCCA may even lead to a wrong investment decision. The findings of this study will help practitioners and researchers better understand the nature of pavement rehabilitation project cost distributions.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01446193.2016.1205206 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:34:y:2016:i:10:p:724-736

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/01446193.2016.1205206

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().