Section Alternative Description. Two alternatives for pavement were included: (1) Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP) Structural Section for new four-lane highway (40-year Pavement Design Life), (2) Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) Structural Section for new four-lane highway (20-year Pavement Design Life). JPCP is a common type of rigid pavement engineered with longitudinal and transverse joints to control where cracking occurs in the slabs. It does not contain steel reinforcement beyond tie bars and dowels between slabs for load transfer. HMA consists of a mixture of asphalt binder and a graded aggregate ranging from coarse to very fine particles. Two rehabilitation cycles are expected for the JPCP alternative, and five are expected for the HMA alternative. All costs are entered as base-year amounts in today's dollars; the LCCA method escalates all amounts to their future year of occurrence and discounts them back to the base date to convert them to present values. The LCCA also uses the time sensitive nature of cost to calculate an Equivalent Uniform Annual Cost. The table below provides a cost comparison. Table 10 - Comparative Cost Results of LCCA over 55-Year Period Total Cost Alternative 1: JPCP - 40 YR design life Alternative 2: HMA – 20 YR design life Agency Cost ($1000) User Cost ($1000) Agency Cost ($1000) User Cost ($1000) Undiscounted Sum $50,777 $253 $59,759 $1,009 Present Value $49,133 $43 $51,224 $276 Equivalent Uniform Annual Cost $2,222 $2 $2,317 $13 The results show JPCP to have a lower annualized cost to both the user and the agency. Agency cost is primarily comprised of material, labor, and maintenance. User cost considers cost associated with delay. Speed reduction, idling, and stopping due to construction of repairs and maintenance would differ depending on the material chosen. HMA has over six times the cost to the user due to the frequency of maintenance required.
