Model for Estimating Rehabilitation Costs Associated with the Elimination of Load Zones in the FM System

摘要

A computerized procedure was developed to make a comparison between the rehabilitation costs associated with the present 60-kip GVW limit and those costs associated with an increase to 80-kip gross weight (or any other specified limit). In order to properly take into consideration the effect of several climatic factors throughout the state, the following activities were conducted before using the computerized procedure: division of the State of Texas into five climatically homogeneous regions; determination of basic rehabilitation/maintenance performance and cost parameters for each region. In summary, the computerized methodology developed for the analysis of the FM system consists of: a procedure that transforms vehicle loadings into 18-kip EASLs; a load shifting procedure that allows the consideration of given traffic distributions under new GVW limits; a cost estimation procedure that computes miles in need of rehabilitation alternatives and costs.