An Enhanced Framework to Compute Road User Costs Associated with Construction Zones

The monetary quantification of inconveniences caused to the road users by ongoing construction activities is known as the Road Users Costs (RUCs). While the importance of RUCs is widely known, some highway agencies lack an appropriate methodology to compute RUCs. Thus, there is a need to develop a framework to compute RUCs that can be adopted quickly by highway agencies. This study reviewed existing literature and conducted a nationwide survey to identify and summarize the current practices of computing RUCs. It developed an enhanced framework and tool to compute RUCs that balances the effort required to calculate RUCs and the accuracy of the results. This enhanced framework accounts for the spatiotemporal variation of RUCs. The results of the study are expected to enable highway agencies to quickly and accurately compute RUCs to make better project management decisions, such as selecting the best contractor that minimizes the agency costs and RUCs