Road User Cost Analysis And Applied Research

With the development of road construction, Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) method begins to be used to guide road construction. As the most important components of Life Cycle Cost (LCC), user costs have become the focus of research area. This thesis researched on user costs of project-level and network-level roads according to traffic theory, and applied the results to find the optimal work-zone length to indicate its correct theory and good usability.At first,this thesis elaborated the internal structure of user costs and existing calculation models. User costs are made up of vehicle operating costs, delay costs, costs of traffic accidents and uncomfortable running. Usually, vehicle operating costs are the most important components among user costs. Delay costs are analyzed by the method of delay classification based on the running characteristics of vehicles in construction. Costs of traffic accidents are composed of direct and indirect costs which including passenger transport indirect costs and freight indirect costs.Secondly, based on the work zone of simplified multi-lane road, this paper deducted the delay of vehicles when they went through the work zone, and built up a model of total cost which consists of vehicle operating costs and delay costs, by analyzing the traffic control and the characteristics of traffic flow in the area. This paper also formulated a function to get the optimal work-zone length in road maintenance as well as reconstruction and extension engineerings.This thesis researched and analysised the user costs of network lastly. Based on thorough understanding of network conditions, traffic flow conditons, characteristics of work zone and traffic control measures, network user cost ingredients can be determined. User costs can be calculated according to the model considering of actual survey and theoretical derivation. A simulation about specific network was adopted to analysis user cost at the end of chapter 4.