Preliminary Assessment of Effects of Gross Vehicle Weight Limit Increases for Trucks on Pavement Life and Cost

Rongzong Wu, Angel Mateos and John Harvey

Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series from Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis

Abstract: In January 2022, the Caltrans Pavement Program asked the University of California Pavement Research Center (UCPRC) to provide a quick high-level estimate of the effects of gross vehicle weight limit increases for trucks on pavement performance and the associated impact on the costs of pavement maintenance (Maintenance budget) and rehabilitation (SHOPP budget). Caltrans is considering increasing the limit from current 80 kips to 88 kips. This technical memorandum was delivered in February 2022. It was updated based on Caltrans comments in the same month and used internally by Caltrans but was not published. In September 2024 the Pavement Program requested that the UCPRC publish the technical memorandum. The results show that the high-level estimate is that the Maintenance and SHOPP budgets for pavement will need to increase by approximately 6% over the current projected 10-year total cost of $20.2 billion, resulting in a 10-year total increase of approximately $1.2 billion.

Keywords: Engineering; gross vehicle weight; pavement life; pavement cost (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03-01
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