Estimation of Pavement Damage Cost for Establishing Equitable Road Use Fee for Commercial Vehicles – An Exploratory Empirical Analysis

Funding the maintenance, rehabilitation and reconstruction (MR&R) of highway infrastructure is becoming a challenging task for highway agencies around the globe. Highway agencies usually charge road use fees to the highway users that are either mileage based or proportional to the actual share of infrastructure damage occasioned. Current road user charges (highway toll) for commercial vehicles in Pakistan are based on expert opinion, thus completely disregarding equity impacts. Present study used a rational framework by incorporating the actual maintenance strategies used by national highway authority (NHA) of Pakistan for estimation of pavement damage cost. MR&R strategies (treatment type and timings) were formulated using twenty-five year life-cycle length and standard maintenance and rehabilitation treatments used by national highway agency. Marginal pavement damage cost (MPDC) for unit traffic loading was estimated by relating the highway agency pavement MR&R expenditure to the level of pavement loading. MPDC for national highway system was estimated to be Rs. 0.395 (2014 constant Rupees) per ESAL-km. Present study also compared the road use fee based on MPDC with existing road use fee for major truck classes and evaluated equity impacts.