Evaluation of Tools for Incorporating Road User Costs in Pavement Rehabilitation Decision-Making on Rural Highways in Saskatchewan

This study is part of an effort to incorporate road user costs and economic impacts into asset management system in the network level pavement rehabilitation decision-making process. Widely used software (MicroBENCOST and HDM-4) for calculating road user costs and benefit-cost ratio are evaluated. The outputs generated from the two softwares are analyzed and compared when the input conditions are consistent for both programs. Critical input parameters having dominant impact on major outputs are identified. The evaluation results show that the two softwares have similar changing trend. However, the benefit-cost ratio from MicroBENCOST is normally higher than from HDM-4 under the same input conditions. Engineers should not consider the benefit-cost ratio obtained from either software as an absolute value.