The user costs include the costs borne by highway users such as additional travel time costs, crash costs, costs of operating vehicles in work zone conditions, and environmental costs. The pavement type selection process currently used by Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) does not include user costs quantitatively. This thesis provides a comprehensive review of literature and tools used to calculate user costs. The results of a questionnaire survey on the role played by user costs in pavement type selection processes of various state and regional agencies in US and Canada are provided.
Based on the findings from literature review and questionnaire survey, this thesis investigates and provides recommendations for including user delay costs quantitatively in Ohio DOT's pavement type selection process. Two case studies presented in this thesis illustrate the methods recommended in this thesis and their applicability to real life scenarios.