EVALUATION OF COSTS AND BENEFITS
Costs of participants in traffic are calculated on the basis of traffic forecast or field research.
The following tools are used for the economic evaluation road users’ benefits:
- OPCOST, software developed by OMEGA consult Ltd.
- TUBA, software developed by the University of East Anglia, UK
- HDM 4, developed by Data Collection Ltd., New Zealand.
Calculated costs contain costs of time as well as consumption and wear and tear costs for all types of personal and freight traffic. Based on users´ costs in the analyzed period we calculate their benefits and traffic efficiency of individual projects or project variants.
COST AND BENEFIT ANALYSIS
Due to high costs of building and environmental impacts all infrastructural influences must be evaluated on the long term. Investors´ available assets are limited; therefore, it is important to choose the most important and economically viable investments.
An analysis of costs and benefits includes:
- calculation of economic viability of projects based on users´ benefits and costs of investment,
- comparisons of different investment scenarios,
- CBA analysis including direct and indirect cost of investment,
- optimal order of specific building stages.
ROAD MANAGEMENT
The basic function of road management is the maintenance and improvement of current road network status in order to ensure usability, efficiency and safety of traffic.
Given the envisaged usage of the road we can expect that it will safely and satisfactorily serve its purpose in the expected lifetime. The speed of road degradation is conditioned by the traffic loads, climatic, geological & hydrological characteristics of air and ground.
Road management programme – PMS (Pavement Management System) stands for efficient and reasonable management of all those activities that contribute to keeping the roads in good condition at minimal cost in the planned period. These activities include planning, dimensioning, building, maintenance, research and monitoring. PMS sets priority maintenance and development tasks, assesses their necessary funding and realization dynamics in the planned period.
A road management plan includes: