Costs and Benefits of Transportation Projects and Policies

A comprehensive vocabulary review of the categories, descriptions, and real-world examples of potential costs and benefits associated with transportation projects and policies as presented in Figure 58.

Capital Costs

One-time design and construction costs for a transportation project, including planning, preliminary engineering, project design, environmental impact analysis, right-of-way acquisition, construction, and equipment purchases.

Operating Costs

Recurring operations, maintenance, and rehabilitation costs, such as traffic management, crash- or weather-related repair and cleanup, equipment, utilities, and resurfacing.

Vehicle Costs

Costs associated with vehicle ownership and maintenance, such as fuel, tire replacement, insurance, and wear.

Travel Time

A potential cost or benefit measured by lost time and productivity during travel.

Travel Time Reliability

A transportation performance measure defined as the variance of schedule uncertainty.

Safety Costs

The impacts and expenses associated with the number, severity, and financial cost of vehicular crashes.

Emissions Costs

The health and other societal costs resulting from vehicle-produced pollution.

Noise Costs

Discomfort and loss of property value caused by traffic noise.

Ecological Impacts

The effects of travel and transportation infrastructure on wildlife habitat, water flow, and water quality.

Right-of-Way Acquisition

A one-time capital cost involving the procurement of land required to construct a new transportation facility.

Highway Resurfacing

A recurring highway operating and maintenance activity that improves road surface conditions and reduces vehicle wear without requiring full reconstruction.

Signal Timing Coordination

A traffic management improvement implemented on arterial streets that enables faster travel times and decreases travel delays.

High-Occupancy/Toll (HOT) Lane

A dynamically priced highway lane designed to keep travel speeds close to free flow speed and reduce travel time variability.

Rumble Strips

A safety feature added to roadways to reduce the number of crashes related to driver fatigue.

Fleet Conversion

An emissions-reduction strategy involving transitioning vehicle fleets from diesel fuel to compressed natural gas.

Sound Wall

A physical barrier built between a freeway and an adjacent neighborhood to reduce traffic noise.

Roadway Alignment Impact

An ecological detriment occurring when a planned road route traverses an endangered species habitat, impeding animal movements through the area.

Free Flow Speed

The target travel speed maintained by dynamically priced high-occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes to ensure schedule reliability.