Unit Costs

Derivation of appropriate pavement M&R unit costs is not trivial and is described in full in a separate report, Appendix C. A brief description of the process follows.

First, pavement unit costs were derived from a sample of actual construction projects completed by Alaska DOT&PF during the period 2005 to 2024. We carefully reviewed the projects, assigned them to a category of work, removed any miscellaneous costs unrelated to pavement M&R (i.e., fencing, access roads, building, generators, etc.), and computed a unit cost for the pavement treatment based on the pavement area constructed. We then developed a method of standardizing pavement M&R costs around the state to a specific location—Anchorage—by use of published heating fuel prices. Lastly, we ensured that unit costs were inflation adjusted to a standard year of analysis—2024.

Through this process, unit costs for a range of pavement M&R treatments were developed for three categories: Localized Pavement Preservation and Corrective Maintenance (Table 16), Global Surface Treatments (Table 17) , and Major Rehabilitation or Reconstruction (Table 18). These unit costs are used for a variety of purposes in PAVER including the analysis of alternative M&R budget scenarios.

Cost by Condition

The maintenance policies in Table 13 and Table 14 are used in the budget plans and represent what localized repairs are needed immediately. While this is helpful knowledge for an engineer, pavement manager, or M&O staff, planning a five-year budget requires incorporation of work categories like major M&R. A five-year work plan computes the required budget by applying the cost to repair based on PCI.

The PAVER software (versions 7.1 and greater) introduced capabilities to model these localized costs by plotting the inspection PCI vs. the localized cost per area to repair using the distress maintenance policies. PAVER then applies segmented lines of best fit to the data points and automatically generates cost by condition tables. Table 19 shows the Anchorage-based AC and PCC preventive maintenance cost by condition while Table 20 presents the Anchorage-based AC and PCC stopgap maintenance cost by condition.

The major M&R cost by condition is a relationship between minor and major M&R requirements for a range of PCI values. Pavement sections with PCI values greater than 70 generally require preventive/preservation treatments while pavements with PCI values less than 30 require complete reconstruction. As such, the associated costs are near constant for PCI values at or above 70 and at or below 30. For PCI values between 70 and 55 pavements require minor rehabilitation while PCI values between 55 and 30 require major rehabilitation. Rehabilitation allows for additional work such as patching, milling or any other remedial work that must be accomplished prior to an overlay. As such, the rehabilitation costs of pavements with a PCI between 70 and 30 are interpolated. Table 21 presents the Anchorage-based AC and PCC major M&R cost by condition.