Development And Evaluation Of An Incident Response Database For Washington State PDF Download

Short term, temporary events and activities such as construction or maintenance, infrastructure damage repair, overheight/overwidth vehicle movements, vehicular crashes, hazardous spills, etc. impair facility performance by fully or partially reducing the roadway capacity. Expressed in terms of delay, the impact of these temporary facility use losses has been extensively investigated and well documented. Lacking is a comprehensive examination of how these impacts are valued in monetary terms and how, if at all, these associated costs are recovered by facility owners. The intent of this investigation was to identify any and all costs associated with temporary facility use losses and determine what, if any, costs are recoverable by facility owners. A review of published literature, national department of transportation survey responses and informational shortcomings discovered through this investigation suggest the following. Traditional costs such as labor (including overhead), equipment and materials are easily justifiable and are commonly collected though not consistently across activities or public agency divisions. Cost recovery for motoring public delay costs is most frequently addressed in the context of delay prevention rather than delay recovery. Incentives and consequent penalties for delay prevention are included in innovative construction contracts as a means to reduce impacts from public agency initiated road work. Capturing delay costs in a true recovery context (i.e., following the occurrence of a vehicular incident) would require definition of a uniform unit cost for delay, which to date has been challenged. Beyond the tangible costs currently being recovered from utility related activities (i.e., resultant road work, permits, inspections, etc.), there is little opportunity to recover motoring public delay costs attributable to their activities. Given these findings, recommended opportunities for improved cost recovery for temporary transportation facility use loss should focus on (1) more widespread and uniform capture of traditional and defensible costs including labor and overhead, equipment and materials and (2) continued and increased use of innovative construction contracting methods that provide incentives for prevention of unnecessary motoring public delay.