The Full Cost of Intercity Highway Transportation

David Levinson and David Gillen

No 199704, Working Papers from University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group

Abstract: In this paper we review the theoretical and empirical literature on the cost structure of the provision of intercity highway transportation and specify and estimate our own cost functions . We develop a full cost model which identifies the key cost components and then estimate costs component by component: user costs, infrastructure costs, time and congestion costs, noise costs, accident costs, and pollution costs. The total long run average cost is $0.34 per vehicle kilometer traveled. The single largest cost category is freeflow travel time. While the marginal cost of infrastructure is higher than its average cost, indicating that new construction is increasingly expensive, the marginal cost of driving (user fixed and variable costs) is less than the average cost, indicating that by increasing travel the user can spread his fixed cost of a vehicle over more trips without penalty.

JEL-codes: H23 R40 R42 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published in Transportation Research -D 3:4 207-223.

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http://hdl.handle.net/11299/179857 First version, 2007 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nex:wpaper:fullcostintercityhighways

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