AP-T195-12 Web PDF

AP-T195-12
AUSTROADS TECHNICAL REPORT

Improving Cost Allocation by Road Type



Published March 2012

Austroads Ltd 2012

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968,
no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior written permission of Austroads.

ISBN 978-1-921991-08-0

Austroads Project No. AS1335

Austroads Publication No. APT195-12

Project Manager

Chris Egger, NTC

Prepared by

AECOM

Published by Austroads Ltd
Level 9, Robell House
287 Elizabeth Street
Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone: +61 2 9264 7088
Fax: +61 2 9264 1657
Email: austroads@austroads.com.au
www.austroads.com.au

Austroads believes this publication to be correct at the time of printing and does not accept
responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of information herein. Readers should
rely on their own skill and judgement to apply information to particular issues.


Sydney 2012

About Austroads
Austroads purpose is to:
promote improved Australian and New Zealand transport outcomes
provide expert technical input to national policy development on road and road transport
issues
promote improved practice and capability by road agencies.
promote consistency in road and road agency operations.

Austroads membership comprises the six state and two territory road transport and traffic
authorities, the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure and Transport, the Australian Local
Government Association, and New Zealand Transport Agency. Austroads is governed by a Board
consisting of the chief executive officer (or an alternative senior executive officer) of each of its
eleven member organisations:
Roads and Maritime Services New South Wales
Roads Corporation Victoria
Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland
Main Roads Western Australia
Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure South Australia
Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources Tasmania
Department of Lands and Planning Northern Territory
Department of Territory and Municipal Services Australian Capital Territory
Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure and Transport
Australian Local Government Association
New Zealand Transport Agency.

The success of Austroads is derived from the collaboration of member organisations and others in
the road industry. It aims to be the Australasian leader in providing high quality information, advice
and fostering research in the road transport sector.

Austroads 2012

-- i --
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background .................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Project objective ........................................................................................................... 1
1.3 Outline .......................................................................................................................... 4
2 Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 5
2.1 Definitions ..................................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Overview of the data ..................................................................................................... 5
2.3 Relationship between road use parameters .................................................................. 6
2.4 Regression analysis ...................................................................................................... 8
2.5 Calculation of the attributable share of expenditure .................................................... 13
2.6 Testing Road Network Classifications ......................................................................... 14
2.7 Limitations .................................................................................................................. 14
2.8 International Comparisons .......................................................................................... 16
2.9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 18
3 Results Expenditure Category B2 Periodic Maintenance ............................................ 19
3.1 The overall attributable share ...................................................................................... 19
3.2 Road Network Classifications ..................................................................................... 20
3.3 Overall findings ........................................................................................................... 28
4 Results Expenditure Category D - Rehabilitation ............................................................ 30
4.1 The overall attributable share ...................................................................................... 30
4.2 Road network classifications ....................................................................................... 31
4.3 Overall finding ............................................................................................................. 35
5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 36
5.1 Findings ...................................................................................................................... 36
5.2 Next steps ................................................................................................................... 38
Appendix A Victorian Arterial Roads ...................................................................................... 40
Appendix B NSW Arterial Road data ....................................................................................... 47
Appendix C Queensland Arterial Road data ........................................................................... 50
Appendix D South Australia Arterial Road data ..................................................................... 54
Appendix E Map of Climate Categories .................................................................................. 57
Appendix F Victorian Local Roads .......................................................................................... 61
Appendix G Average expenditure ............................................................................................ 70
Appendix H Proportions of Network/Road Use in Each Road network Classification
category .......................................................................................................................... 73
References .......................................................................................................................... 76


Austroads 2012

-- ii --

List of Tables
Table 1: Current attributable shares used in cost allocation process and proportion of expenditure
(NTC, 2005) .................................................................................................................................... 2
Table 2: Road network classifications considered in this study ....................................................... 3
Table 3: Average ESA for Victoria and New South Wales ............................................................... 7
Table 4: Average ESA for Queensland and South Australia ............................................................ 7
Table 5: Correlation coefficients ...................................................................................................... 8
Table 6: Average annual expenditure per lane km by road use group - Queensland ..................... 10
Table 7: Limitations and consequences ........................................................................................ 14
Table 8: Attributable percentages Climate .................................................................................. 22
Table 9: Attributable percentages Urban/ Rural (LGA groups) ................................................... 24
Table 10: Attributable percentages Urban/ Rural (Roadside) ..................................................... 24
Table 11: Attributable percentages Terrain ................................................................................ 24
Table 12: Attributable percentages Functional Classification...................................................... 25
Table 13: Attributable percentages Surface Type ....................................................................... 26
Table 14: Attributable percentages Pavement Type ................................................................... 27
Table 15: Attributable percentages Sealed/Unsealed ................................................................. 27
Table 16: Road network classification categories for periodic maintenance .................................. 29
Table 17: Attributable proportions for each road network classification category - B2 Periodic
Maintenance ................................................................................................................................. 29
Table 18: Attributable percentage - Climate .................................................................................. 31
Table 19: Attributable percentage Urban/Rural (LGA) ................................................................ 32
Table 20: Attributable percentage Urban/ Rural ......................................................................... 32
Table 21: Attributable percentage Traffic volume ........................................................................ 33
Table 22: Attributable percentage Pavement Type ...................................................................... 34
Table 23: Attributable proportions for each road network classification category D Road
rehabilitation ................................................................................................................................. 35
Table 24: Road Network Classification by expenditure category ................................................... 36
Table 25: Expenditure category B2 ............................................................................................... 37
Table 26: Expenditure category D ................................................................................................. 37
Table 27: Overview of work types included in expenditure categories ........................................... 42
Table 28: Overview of number of unmatched entries .................................................................... 44
Table 29: Total rehabilitation expenditure (in $000) and proportion of expenditure captured by the
database ....................................................................................................................................... 45
Table 30: Total periodic pavement maintenance expenditure (in $000) and proportion of
expenditure captured by the database .......................................................................................... 45
Table 31: Expenditure categories covered by analysis .................................................................. 48

Austroads 2012

-- iii --
Table 32: Total expenditure Allocated 1998-2007 ......................................................................... 49
Table 33: Relevant work types and corresponding expenditure categories ................................... 51
Table 34: Total number of projects and number of projects not attributable to road inventory ....... 56
Table 35: Proportion of costs allocated ......................................................................................... 56
Table 36: Average capital renewal expenditure per VKT for Municipal Groups ............................. 64
Table 37: Average capital renewal expenditure per VKT for average traffic density groups .......... 66
Table 38: Results for regression of traffic density on capital renewal expenditure for sealed roads
..................................................................................................................................................... 68
Table 39: Results for regression of traffic density on capital renewal expenditure for unsealed
roads ............................................................................................................................................. 68
Table 40: Periodic maintenance expenditure - Average expenditure per road segment ................ 71
Table 41: Rehabilitation - Average Annual Exp per Lane km ........................................................ 72
Table 42: New South Wales - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification
category ........................................................................................................................................ 73
Table 43: Queensland - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification
category ........................................................................................................................................ 74
Table 44: South Australia - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification
category ........................................................................................................................................ 74
Table 45: Victoria - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification category 75


Austroads 2012

-- iv --
List of Figures
Figure 1: Calculation of road use parameters .................................................................................. 7
Figure 2: NSW Periodic maintenance versus average annual AGM ................................................ 9
Figure 3: NSW Binned analysis of periodic maintenance and AGM ............................................. 11
Figure 4: NSW Logarithm analysis of periodic maintenance and AGM .......................................... 12
Figure 5: Illustrative example of calculating the proportion of expenditure attributable to road use 13
Figure 6: How to derive the share of expenditure attributable to road use ..................................... 13
Figure 7: Relationship between road use and expenditure ............................................................ 18
Figure 8: Proportion of periodic maintenance expenditure attributable to road use ....................... 19
Figure 9: Results for climate road network classification ............................................................... 22
Figure 10: Proportion of rehabilitation expenditure attributable to road use ................................... 30
Figure 11: Road network classification findings ............................................................................. 37
Figure 12: Illustration of database showing rehabilitation expenditure p.a. ($'000) by year............ 43
Figure 13: Total rehabilitation and periodic maintenance expenditure by year .............................. 46
Figure 14: NSW Total Annual Periodic Maintenance and Rehabilitation Expenditure .................... 48
Figure 15: Relationship between road links and segments ............................................................ 49
Figure 16: Queensland database .................................................................................................. 52
Figure 17: Queensland Total Annual Periodic Maintenance and Rehabilitation Expenditure
included in analysis ....................................................................................................................... 53
Figure 18: Periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure ................................................... 55
Figure 19: Rainfall patterns in Victoria ........................................................................................... 57
Figure 20: Rainfall patterns in South Australia .............................................................................. 58
Figure 21: Rainfall pattern in Queensland ..................................................................................... 59
Figure 22: Rainfall pattern in New South Wales ............................................................................ 60
Figure 23: Categorisation of road length by traffic volume versus expenditure for local roads data63
Figure 24: Scatter plot of LGA traffic density versus LGA capital renewal expenditure for sealed
roads ............................................................................................................................................. 67
Figure 25: Scatter plot of LGA traffic density versus LGA capital renewal expenditure for unsealed
roads ............................................................................................................................................. 67

Austroads 2012

-- v --
FOREWORD
Over the past five years, Austroads and NTC have jointly undertaken a number of research
projects that have the potential to provide improved insights into the relationship between road
usage and road costs based on recent historical data and new types of analytical techniques.
Three of these projects were undertaken as part of the Austroads Assets Research Program.
These projects were undertaken for several purposes including:
providing future input into heavy vehicle road charging determinations
future reform of heavy vehicle road pricing
best practice asset management.
The projects were:
AS1335 Improved Cost Allocation Rules by Road Type (this publication)
AS1337 Establishing a New National Pavement Maintenance Database
(Publication number AP-R394-11)
AT1394 Understanding Wear and Cost Implications of Incremental Loads on the
Road Network (Phases 1 & 2) (Initially released as an internal document IR-
190-10, later released as a public document AP-R402-12)
The results of these projects will be an input into discussions with governments and industry where
they may be considered relevant to future heavy vehicle road pricing determinations, particularly in
the area of allocation of road costs to different road users.
The project reports should be read in conjunction with each other. Essentially, the AS1335 and
AS1337 papers take two different statistical approaches and somewhat different data sets to
investigate the relationships between road use data and road costs.
A key issue with the results outlined in all reports is the quality of the road use data that has been
applied to investigate these relationships. Whilst this is an important constraint of the reports,
Austroads and NTC consider these projects to be a first step in the process of evolving cost
allocation and acknowledge that further development of the analysis contained within the reports
may be required based on further consultation with industry and government. It may be beneficial
to establish processes to collect improved data sets at some future point.
Ms Kathryn Martin
Austroads Program Manager Assets Program


Austroads 2012

-- vi --
SUMMARY
Background and objectives
Austroads and the National Transport Commission (NTC) commissioned AECOM Australia Pty Ltd
(formerly Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd) to investigate the most appropriate road network classification
for heavy vehicle cost allocation purposes. Road network classifications can take account of
different criteria, for example, roads could be classified by their location (urban/rural), function
(arterial/local) or pavement type.
The outcomes of this project are intended to be used:
to improve the current approach to cost allocation;
to develop incremental pricing; and
to develop direct user charging.
The overall objective of this project was to determine the most appropriate road network
classification for heavy vehicle cost allocation and pricing. The way in which different types of
expenditure are allocated differs with:
The overall proportion of expenditure attributable and non-attributable to road use;
The road use parameters that are used for cost allocation;
The relative proportions of attributable expenditure that are attributed to each road use
parameter.
Road use parameters comprise vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT), passenger car unit kilometres
(PCU-km), average gross mass kilometres (AGM-km) and equivalent standard axle kilometres
(ESA-km).
Table ES1 provides an overview of the road network classifications considered in the analysis and
their definitions.
Table ES1: Road network classifications considered in this study
Road network
classifications
Categories How to implement
Climate
Dry, Medium, Wet (for a map
showing extent of each category refer
to Appendix E)
Bureau of Meteorology historical rainfall classifications,
Dry below 400mm per annum
Medium between 400 800mm per annum
Wet above 800mm per annum
Urban/Rural
(LGA groups)
Urban, Rural
Each States local government association allocates LGAs to one of six
LGA groups, ranging from capital city to remote. As State Road
Authorities (SRA) data include LGA for each road section the LGA
groups can be used to categorise the SRA network data.
Urban/Rural
(Roadside)
Urban, Semi-Urban, Treed,
Grassland
SRA classification where available
Terrain Urban, Flat, Rolling, Hilly SRA classification where available

Austroads 2012

-- vii --
Road network
classifications
Traffic volume
(AADT)
Low, Medium, High
SRA data contains AADTs for each road section. For the analysis
these have been grouped into the following ranges.
Low below 1,000 AADT
Medium between 1,000 and 10,000 AADT
High above 10,000 AADT
Functional Arterial (M,A,B,C), Local SRA Classification
Surface type Bitumen seal, other seal SRA classification where available
Pavement Type
Flexible, Non-Flexible
Concrete (Portland Cement
Concrete) , Non-Concrete
Sealed/Unsealed Sealed, Unsealed SRA Classification where available

This project differs from previous investigations in that it includes:
analysis of the relationship between road use and expenditure without considering road
condition; and
analysis of data on expenditure and road use for expenditure categories B2 and D that
covers the whole arterial road network for four States (and Victorian local roads) instead of
analysing only a sample of road sections.
The terms of reference for this project were to derive cost functions and resulting road
classifications, as far as possible, from actual nationwide road use and expenditure data. Previous
studies had investigated these relationships based on a sample of regularly monitored road
sections and on engineering theory and practice but none had previously sought to derive these
relationships using road use and expenditure data from all roads in Australia.
Methodology
The methodology for determining the most appropriate road network classification involved a
number of steps. Firstly, road use and expenditure data was obtained from State Road Authorities.
The data was analysed using statistical regressions on historic expenditure and road use to
determine the attributable share of road use. The datasets were then split into different road types
and the analysis was performed again to investigate how the attributable share differs between
different road types. The results were then interpreted on conclusions on the most appropriate
road network classification were drawn.
Results
Overall, the statistical analysis demonstrated that the relationship between road use and
expenditure does not provide a strong basis for determining the most appropriate road network
classification unless the data collection process can be improved. There were a number of key
data limitations:
Expenditure data is only available for up to 10 years (the period varies for each state) this
implies that a full pavement life cycle is not captured and there is a high number of roads
sections with zero rehabilitation expenditure and many with minimal periodic maintenance
expenditure;
PCU, AGM and ESA have to be derived from AADT counts and estimates of the proportion
of traffic that is heavy vehicles because heavy vehicle road use data is not monitored and

Austroads 2012

-- viii --
recorded for different vehicle classes for each road segment. This leads to high collinearity
between road use parameters;
Variations in the range of road characteristics recorded in road inventories had the
consequence that only a small number of road network classifications could be tested for all
states;
Expenditure is influenced by funding availability and strategies this implies that the
assumption of optimal interventions may not hold;
There is limited data available on the age of pavements or the timing of the previous
resurfacing and rehabilitation treatments.
Bearing in mind the above limitations, Table ES2 shows which road network classifications provide
the largest differentiation for each expenditure category.
Table ES2: Road Network Classification by expenditure category
Expenditure category
Primary road Network Classification that gives
the best differentiation
Secondary road Network Classification that
gives the best differentiation
B2 - Periodic surface maintenance
Climate
AusLink roads
Unsealed
Arterial / local roads
D - Road Rehabilitation
Climate zones
AusLink roads
Unsealed roads
Arterial / local roads
The resulting road network classification is illustrated in Figure ES1.

Figure ES1: Road network classification findings
Dry climate
Med climate
Wet climate
Unsealed
AusLink network
Arterial
Local
Arterial
Local
Arterial
Local
Primary Road Network
Classification
Secondary Road Network
Classification

Austroads 2012

-- ix --
Table ES3 and Table ES4 provide a summary of the road use parameters and estimated
attributable shares for each road type included in the chosen primary road network classification.
Table ES3: Expenditure category B2
Road type VKT PCU-km AGM-km ESA-km Non-attributable
AusLink Network 45% 55%
Climate Dry 10-25% 75-90%
Climate Medium 35-45% 65-55%
Climate Wet 10-25% 75-90%
Unsealed Roads 80-90% 10-20%

Table ES4: Expenditure category D
Unsealed Roads 45% 45% 10%

Conclusions and recommended next steps
The statistical analysis has demonstrated that the relationship between road use and expenditure
does not provide a strong basis for determining the most appropriate road network classification
unless the data collection process can be improved. It is therefore considered preferable to view
the results and findings as a basis for further investigation rather than firm recommendations to
change current cost allocation practices.
However, before embarking on further data collection, the benefits and costs of different ways
forward need to be considered. The benefits are generally related to greater certainty of results
which would lead to a change in heavy vehicle charges and therefore translate to efficiency gains.
The costs mainly include further research or resources required for on-going data collection and
analysis.
There are two possible ways forward for which the benefits may outweigh the costs. One possible
approach is that, taking into account the cost allocation methodologies employed in other countries
and the difficulties and limitations of the analysis presented in this report, a theoretical approach to
classifying the road network based on engineering principles may be a more practical way to
determine appropriate cost functions for different road network classifications.
A second possible approach, collection of additional data, could enhance both the above
theoretical approach as well as econometric analysis such as described in this report. Continuous
data on sample road segments have been collected previously in Australia (between the early
1980s and late 1990s). The monitoring and data collection process eventually ceased due to lack
of funding commitment. As a result, a further round of data collection, even on a selected
representative sample of road segments, is likely to only be successful if it was:
Based on a long-term funding and resourcing commitment;
Independent from funding decisions, in order to obtain an unbiased sample; and

Austroads 2012

-- x --
Comprehensive in terms of the data collected (including heavy vehicle classes, different
types of expenditure, pavement and surface type).
Even if the relevant data was collected on a consistent basis at the required level of
disaggregation, the relationship between road use and expenditure will still be strongly influenced
by a range of external factors (differences in budgets, strategies, funding guidelines, funding
availability, etc).


Austroads 2011
- 1 -
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Austroads and the National Transport Commission (NTC) commissioned AECOM Australia Pty Ltd
(formerly Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd) to investigate the most appropriate road network classification
for heavy vehicle cost allocation purposes. Road network classifications can be based on various
different criteria, for example, roads may be classified by their location (urban/rural), function
(arterial/local) or pavement type.
The NTC uses a cost allocation method to determine heavy vehicle registration charges and the
fuel charge which are reviewed by the NTC on a regular basis. The current approach to cost
allocation involves a large extent of averaging due to the use of uniform cost functions for all roads.
However, in reality different types of roads perform in different ways with different wear
relationships and failure mechanisms. Appropriate road network classification is therefore an
important step to enable incremental pricing and eventually pave the way for direct user charging.
Overall, this project is intended to take the theoretical background paper on Classification of the
Road Network for Cost Allocation Purposes (NTC, 2006) a step further to develop a road network
classification based on actual data. The outcomes of this project are intended to be used:
to improve the current approach to cost allocation;
to develop incremental pricing; and
to develop direct user charging.
In November 2007, AECOM prepared a hold point report based on the analysis of expenditure and
road use data for Victoria only. On the basis of the hold point report it was decided to extend the
analysis to cover other states as well, in accordance with the original terms of reference. Data was
subsequently obtained from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.
Following a workshop with State Road Authority (SRA) representatives in August 2008 a variation
to the project was agreed in October 2008. The variation included further data collection (on
pavement age) as well as additional analysis of SRA funding guidelines.
1.2 Project objective
The overall objective of this project is to determine the most appropriate road network classification
for heavy vehicle cost allocation and pricing.
The current NTC cost allocation template consists of a number of different expenditure categories
as shown in Table 1. The way in which different types of expenditure are allocated differs with:
The overall proportions of expenditure that are attributable and non-attributable to road use;
The road use parameters that are used for cost allocation;
The relative proportions of the attributable costs that are attributed to each road use
parameter.
Road use parameters comprise vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT), passenger car unit kilometres
(PCU-km), average gross mass kilometres (AGM-km) and equivalent standard axle kilometres
(ESA-km).

Austroads 2011
- 2 -
Table 1: Current attributable shares used in cost allocation process and proportion of expenditure (NTC, 2005)
Expenditure Category
Percentage of cost that varies with:
Percentage of cost
not attributable to
road use
Proportion of actual total
expenditure (NSW, SA,
VIC, QLD (2007/08))
VKT
PCU-
km
AGM-
km
ESA-
km
A Servicing and Operating 100% 0% 10.2%
B1 Routine maintenance 37% 37% 26% 5.3%
B2 Periodic maintenance 10% 60% 30% 5.1%
C Bridge Maintenance/Rehab 33% 67% 2.3%
D Road Rehabilitation 45% 55% 4.3%
E Low-cost Safety/Traffic improvements 80% 20% 0% 7.1%
F1
Asset extension/Improvements
Pavement components
45% 55% 17.4%
F2
Bridge improvements
15% 85% 7.2%
F3
Land acquisition, earthworks, other
extensions / improvement expenditure
10% 90% 41.1%
G Other N/A

Total 100%
Source: NTC, Proportions of actual total expenditure based on State arterial road expenditure. Note that this study excluded consideration of categories C and F2
(bridges) and G (corporate services, enforcement of heavy vehicle regulations, etc).
The overall proportion of expenditure that is attributable, the road use parameters, and the relative
proportions attributed to each road use parameter are all derived from the applicable cost function
for each expenditure category. The cost function may be thought of as an equation that describes
the relationship between road use and expenditure. The fixed cost part of the cost function
represents the non-attributable share of expenditure while the variable cost represents the
attributable share.
Table 1 shows the percentages of costs that are currently attributed to each road use parameter
for each expenditure category. This cost allocation template is used for all road types which
means that costs are allocated according to the average relationship between road use and
expenditure. This approach is reasonable if the differences between cost functions for different
types of roads are small. However, it is likely that there are some categories of roads for which
cost functions differ greatly.
Table 1 also shows the relative proportions of expenditure by category based on expenditure data
for New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland for the year 2007/08. The
proportions of expenditure in each category are likely to vary over time. In particular, expenditure
on category F will vary with funding availability and transport policy. The table shows that category
F currently accounts for more than half of the total expenditure.
There are a number of reasons for why the statistical analysis in this study has focused on
expenditure categories B2 and D even though category F accounts for a greater proportion of
expenditure:
B2 and D are the only categories for which expenditure data relates to past road use and
data is available at a sufficiently disaggregated level to enable matching of road use and
expenditure for sections with relatively uniform traffic volumes.

Austroads 2011
- 3 -
Category F expenditure has little relationship with past road use as it is determined more by
forecast future road use and traffic growth. As a result, statistical analysis of historic road
use data against category F expenditure is not meaningful.
For category B1, routine maintenance, there is likely to be a relationship between road use
and expenditure, however the expenditure is not recorded separately for each road but rather
as an annual lump sum for a whole route or regional network encompassing sections with
wide range of traffic volumes.
For categories A and E expenditure is also not recorded in a way that allows it to be matched
to road use for the whole network. As a result, analysis of past road use and expenditure
cannot be undertaken for categories A and E.
Therefore, even though category F accounts for the largest proportion of expenditure, the analysis
uses date for categories B2 Periodic maintenance and D Rehabilitation.
Table 2 provides an overview of the road network classifications that were considered in this study.
Table 2: Road network classifications considered in this study
Road network
classifications
Climate
Dry, Medium, Wet (for a map
showing extent of each category refer
to Appendix E)
Bureau of Meteorology historical rainfall classifications,
Dry below 400mm per annum
Medium between 400 800mm per annum
Wet above 800mm per annum
Urban/Rural
(LGA groups)
Urban, Rural
Each States local government association allocates LGAs to one of six
LGA groups, ranging from capital city to remote. As State Road
Authorities (SRA) data include LGA for each road section the LGA
groups can be used to categorise the SRA network data.
Urban/Rural
(Roadside)
Urban, Semi-Urban, Treed,
Grassland
Terrain Urban, Flat, Rolling, Hilly SRA classification where available
Traffic volume
(AADT)
Low, Medium, High
SRA data contains AADTs for each road section. For the analysis
these have been grouped into the following ranges.
Low below 1,000 AADT
Medium between 1,000 and 10,000 AADT
High above 10,000 AADT
Functional Arterial (M,A,B,C), Local SRA Classification
Surface type Bitumen seal, other seal SRA classification where available
Pavement Type
Flexible, Non-Flexible
Concrete (Portland Cement
Concrete), Non-Concrete
Sealed/Unsealed Sealed, Unsealed SRA Classification where available

It was decided that the optimal road network classification should be determined based on the
following criteria:
There are large differences between the attributable shares for each category;
There is a clear pattern of attributable shares between categories;

Austroads 2011
- 4 -
The pattern and the classification are supported by engineering relationships (e.g. on
pavement deterioration); and
The classification can be supported by results from more than one state.
classifications, as far as possible, from actual nationwide road use and expenditure data. Previous
studies had investigated these relationships based on a sample of regularly monitored road
sections and on engineering theory and practice but none had previously sought to derive these
relationships using road use and expenditure data from all roads in Australia. Western Australia
and Tasmania were unable to provide appropriately disaggregated data because of their use of
term maintenance contracts. Data was not sought from the Northern Territory or ACT.
1.3 Outline
The report is structured as follows:
Section 2 provides an overview of the methodology;
Section 3 provides the results and the interpretation of results for expenditure category B2
periodic maintenance;
Section 4 provides the results and the interpretation of results for expenditure category D
rehabilitation expenditure; and
Section 5 presents the conclusions and recommendations.

Austroads 2011
- 5 -
2 METHODOLOGY
2.1 Definitions
Expenditure in category B2 Periodic Maintenance is defined as periodic costs associated with
maintaining sealed roadways and shoulders incurred at a frequency of more than one year. For
example, this includes:
maintenance reseals / enrichments;
thin asphalt overlays (less than 25 mm);
asphalt retreatment; and
administrative and supervision costs associated with above types of works.
Expenditure in category D Road Rehabilitation is defined as costs associated with reinstating
failed pavements to existing standards to improve ride quality and/or correct pavement shape,
including the provision of a wearing course. These costs will normally improve the riding quality of
pavements without improving the design standard. For example, this includes:
major patching in excess of 500 square metres;
resheeting of sealed roads;
reconstruction of failed pavements;
asphalt overlays over 25 mm; and
administrative and supervision costs associated with above types of works.
2.2 Overview of the data
Data was provided by four State Road Authorities (Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and
South Australia). The data was provided in separate files, including:
Road inventory data (e.g. number of lanes, length, local government association, pavement
type);
Road use data (e.g. annual average daily traffic (AADT) and the percentage of heavy
vehicles);
Expenditure data (e.g. amount spent, road link or chainage, type of expenditure, usually
separate files for each financial year).
Some State Road Authorities provided road inventory and road use data in a single combined file.
In order to develop a consolidated database suitable for analysis, data in the three different types
of files had to be matched using a common identifier such as road number and chainage or link
number. The data required substantial processing and cleaning in order to achieve this.
Appendices A to D provide a description of the data processing undertaken to create a consistent
database for each State.

Austroads 2011
- 6 -
The level of disaggregation of the data provided by each State Road Authority differed
considerably. For example, data for Queensland is separated in 1km segments. Data for Victoria
was divided into segments of varying length (0.1km to 188km). Shorter segments have the
advantage that expenditure can be matched with road inventory and hence location in a more
precise way, and that road use is uniform over the length of the segment. However, this
disaggregation leads to many road segments with zero expenditure recorded. The advantage of
longer sections is that a smaller number of segments have zero expenditure. The disadvantage is
that matching expenditure with the road inventory (and sometimes road use) for longer road
sections requires a number of assumptions to be made. The consolidated dataset for each State
includes road inventory data, road use data and average annual expenditure for each road
segment or link. Average annual expenditure is defined as the total expenditure on a road link
over the time period for which data is available divided by the number of years. For example, if a
road link had expenditure of $120,000 in 2002 and the dataset covers the years 2001 to 2006, the
average annual expenditure is equal to $20,000 ($120,000 / 6 years).
Each State Road Authority provided expenditure data covering the maximum number of years for
which records were available, ranging from 4 years for Queensland to 10 years for New South
Wales. This means that the expenditure data does not cover a full rehabilitation cycle for most
roads. As a result, there are a high number of segments with zero expenditure and there is no
pattern to the level of road use on these segments. The road inventory data originally collected did
not include information on pavement age or the timing of previous maintenance or rehabilitation
works so it was not possible to calculate cumulative (or total) road use since previous treatments.
This was considered to be a significant limitation of the analysis.
Consequently, additional data was obtained from the Queensland and New South Wales State
Road Authorities on the year of previous periodic maintenance and rehabilitation works. Victoria
and South Australia could not provide any age data on previous treatments. Multiplying the age
data with data on road use and traffic growth rates, cumulative road use measures could be
calculated. For example, a road with annual VKT of 1 million that was treated 10 years ago is
subjected to cumulative road use of (1 million*10=) 10 million since the last treatment. The
analysis described in the following sections was therefore undertaken using non-cumulative and
cumulative road use data.
It was originally assumed that expenditure incurred in different years does not have to be adjusted
for inflation when calculating the average annual expenditure for each road segment because the
relative proportions of expenditure on different categories of roads is likely to be fairly constant
over time. This assumption was verified by applying the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and
Regional Economics Road construction and maintenance price index to the New South Wales
dataset and showing that the results were similar to those obtained without inflation adjustments.
As the New South Wales expenditure data covered the greatest duration (10 years) this confirmed
that it was not necessary to make inflation adjustments when averaging expenditure data from
different years for the other states.
2.3 Relationship between road use parameters
Road use data obtained from each state included Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) and the
percentage of heavy vehicles (%HV) for each road segment. The current cost allocation template
uses four road use parameters: VKT, PCU-km, AGM-km and ESA-km, as defined in Section 1.2.
In order to derive relationships between expenditure and each of the road use parameters it was
necessary to calculate these parameters for each road segment from the AADT, %HV and length
data for each segment. Values for PCU and AGM were derived using the formulae detailed in
Figure 1. These assume that each heavy vehicle equates to three PCUs on average and that the
average gross weight of a heavy vehicle is fifteen times that of a car.

Austroads 2011
- 7 -

Figure 1: Calculation of road use parameters
In order to calculate ESAs, the average ESAs per heavy vehicle were provided by NTC which are
based on the composition of heavy vehicles as estimated in the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Survey of Motor Vehicle Use. The average ESAs per heavy vehicle were distinguished for urban
and rural to take into account the different composition of heavy vehicle traffic in urban and rural
areas. Table 3 and Table 4 provide an overview of these average ESAs for different states. As
the road use data from Queensland and South Australia included a differentiation between rigid
vehicles, articulated vehicles and B-doubles and road trains, average ESAs were also
differentiated for these different vehicle categories. Figure 1 demonstrates how the average ESAs
were used.
Table 3: Average ESA for Victoria and New South Wales
State Region
Average ESA
Cars HV
VIC
Capital City 0.0001 1.46
Urban 0.0001 0.99
Rural 0.0001 2.11
NSW
Capital City 0.0001 1.05
Urban 0.0001 2.06
Rural 0.0001 2.99
Source: NTC 2008 (spreadsheet)
Table 4: Average ESA for Queensland and South Australia
State Region
Average ESA
Cars Rigid Articulated B-Double/ Road Train
QLD
Capital City 0.0001 0.777 2.180 3.826
Urban 0.0001 0.752 2.184 3.707
Rural 0.0001 0.930 2.214 4.113
SA
Capital City 0.0001 0.674 2.098 3.573
Rural 0.0001 0.877 2.189 3.828
Source: NTC 2008 (spreadsheet)

PCU =AADT * ((1-%HV)*1+%HV*3)
AGM =AADT * ((1-%HV)*1+%HV*15)
ESA
VIC, NSW
=AADT per lane* ((1-%HV)*0.0001 +%HV*average ESAs per HV)
ESA
QLD, SA
=AADT * (1-%HV)*0.0001+Number of rigid HV*average ESAs per rigid HV+
Number of articulated HV * average ESAs per articulate HV +
Number of B-Doubles * average ESAs per B-Double
%HV is the heavy vehicle percentage of AADT


Austroads 2011
- 8 -
As PCU, AGM and ESA values for each segment were calculated from AADT values and the
percentage of heavy vehicles, it is to be expected that all four road use parameters are closely
correlated. Tests for collinearity were therefore performed to determine the correlation coefficients
between each pair of road use parameters as shown in Table 5.
Table 5: Correlation coefficients
Road use parameter 1 Road use parameter 2 Correlation Coefficient
ESA AADT 0.595
ESA PCU 0.703
ESA AGM 0.912
AGM AADT 0.865
AGM PCU 0.990
PCU AADT 0.979

Most of the correlation coefficients are very close to one, suggesting high collinearity. In particular,
the correlation between ESA and AGM is very high. Transforming either of the variables with a
natural logarithm function failed to significantly reduce the collinearity of the variables. This
suggests that a regression with a combination of two of the road use parameters will result in one
of the road use parameters not being statistically significant. This was confirmed by regressing the
pairs of road use parameters that have the lowest correlation coefficients. For example, regressing
periodic maintenance expenditure on ESA and AADT leads to a p-value for ESA of 0.685. As a
result, the analysis undertaken for periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure cannot
determine whether a combination of road use parameters would be more appropriate than the
single parameter that has been selected in each case.
2.4 Regression anal ysis
Simple straight line regression
In order to determine the relationship between expenditure and road use, a simple straight line
regression was performed. Figure 2 provides an example, showing the relationship between
average annual periodic maintenance expenditure and average annual AGM in New South Wales.

Austroads 2011
- 9 -
y =0.0004x +1352.8
R
2
=0.0655
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
0 2000000 4000000 6000000 8000000 10000000 12000000 14000000
AGM/l ane/year
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

A
n
n
u
a
l

E
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e
/
l
a
n
e
/
k
m

$

Figure 2: NSW Periodic maintenance versus average annual AGM
The graph shows that the relationship between expenditure and road use is dispersed and does
not exhibit a strong pattern. The black line represents the regression results. The equation
displayed on the chart implies a fixed expenditure of $1,352 per lane-km per year and variable
costs of 0.04 cents per lane-km per year for each unit of AGM. The fixed expenditure represents all
deterioration in road surface caused by factors independent from road use such as climate or
terrain-related factors, while the variable cost is directly linked to the level of road use.
The fit of this regression equation (measured by the r-square
1
) is relatively low at 6.55%. The fit of
similar regressions for other states and road use parameters was generally between 0.2% and
20%. For Queensland the fit of the regressions using cumulative road use measures was
generally slightly higher than with non-cumulative road use parameters. As expected, this
suggests that cumulative road use measures explain variations in expenditure better than non-
cumulative road use parameters based on a single year of traffic data. However, the difference in
fit was relatively small so it was concluded that using cumulative road use instead of non-
cumulative road use only improves the analysis marginally.
The generally low fit of the regression equations is expected as there are a range of factors that
influence the relationship between road use and expenditure over time. For example, maintenance
practices and available funding can have a strong influence on the relationship between road use
and expenditure. It is important that the coefficient of the regression equation is statistically
significant. This is the case as its p-value is very close to zero
2
.
In order to test whether alternative approaches lead to a better regression fit and to reduce the
noise in the data, other analysis options were investigated.

1
R-square is the proportion of variability in a dataset that is accounted for by a statistical model.
2
The p-value is 5.58*10E-45.

Austroads 2011
- 10 -
Averaging expenditure
Firstly, an analysis was undertaken by averaging the annual expenditure per lane kilometre across
different groups of road use. Table 6 shows the results for periodic maintenance in Queensland.
Results for all States and expenditure categories B2 and D are provided in Appendix G. Road
segments were divided into three groups of similar size depending on their road use. For example,
Table 6 shows that roads with annual traffic below 200,000 were aggregated in one group, roads
with annual traffic between 200,000 and 500,000 were aggregated in a second group and roads
with annual traffic above 500,000 were aggregated in a third group.
Table 6: Average annual expenditure per lane km by road use group - Queensland
Queensland
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<200,000 $4,453 <300,000 $4,598 <500,000 $4,143 <80,000 $4,992
200,000 -
500,000
$7,538
300,000 -
1,000,000
$7,484
500,000 -
1,500,000
$7,617
80,000 -
250,000
$7,795
>500,000 $12,625 >1,000,000 $13,739 >1,500,000 $13,179 >250,000 $13,142

For each of the road use groups, average annual expenditure per lane kilometre was calculated.
The results in Table 6 show that average annual expenditure per lane kilometre consistently
increases with increased average road use. Undertaking the same analysis for all States and
expenditure category D, the average expenditure per road segment is always higher for groups of
road segments with higher road use. The results also hold for all road use parameters.
Grouping expenditure
Consequently, the road use dataset was divided into groups of 100 road segments with the first
group including the lowest 100 AGM and second bin containing the second hundred lowest AGM
and so on. As a second step, the average AGM and average expenditure per road segment for
each bin was calculated and a straight line regression performed on these points. This reduces the
noise in the data, and clearly shows the underlying relationship between road use and expenditure.
Figure 3 shows the results.

Austroads 2011
- 11 -
y =0.0004x +1274.3
R
2
=0.6954
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
0 2000000 4000000 6000000 8000000 10000000 12000000
AGM/Lane/Year
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

A
n
n
u
a
l

E
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

p
e
r

L
a
n
e

k
m

$

Figure 3: NSW Binned analysis of periodic maintenance and AGM
This method leads to a considerably better fit of the regression with an r-square of 69%. However,
the increase in the r-square is solely due to the reduced number of (averaged) observations. The
r-square measures the distance of each observation from the regression line. The regression fit
therefore increases due to the lower number of observations. While this approach is useful for
confirming that there is an underlying relationship between road use and expenditure, the
regression equation in Figure 3 is almost identical to that shown in Figure 2:
Regression equation in Figure 2: 0.0004x+1352.8
Regression equation in Figure 3: 0.0004+1274.3
There is only a small difference in the intercept. It is concluded that this method is useful to
confirm the underlying relationship between road use and expenditure but it has not been applied
throughout the road network classification analysis as reducing the number of observations
artificially improves the r-square but does not change the regression equation materially.
Using the logarithm
Another approach was to take the natural logarithms of both the road use and expenditure
variables. This scales the data, removing the effect of outliers, and is also a commonly used
technique to transform both axes to a similar scale in cases where large unit differences exist.
Figure 4 shows a clear pattern in the data.

Austroads 2011
- 12 -
y =0.3721x +1.9603
R
2
=0.1777
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Ln (AGM)
L
N

(
E
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e
)

Figure 4: NSW Logarithm analysis of periodic maintenance and AGM
Although the r-square value for the logged values suggests a better fit than the original model
(Figure 2), the fit cannot be compared directly as the dependent variables are different for each
model. However, by reversing the logarithm of the log regression equation its fit can be compared
to the fit of the standard straight line regression of the original data. Using this method, it was
found that the log-transformed regression did not provide a better fit of the expenditure and road
use data than the standard linear regression. Therefore the linear regression analysis was
performed on all states and road network classifications and these results were used to calculate
the percentage of expenditure that is attributable to road use.
Conclusion
Overall, there are a number of reasons why the simple straight line regression approach shown in
Figure 2 is the most appropriate approach:
The method of averaging expenditure (as shown in Table 6) for different road use categories
cannot be used to determine the overall relationship between road use and expenditure;
While grouping and averaging data into bins as shown in Figure 3 artificially improves the
r-square of the regression equation compared with Figure 2 it does not change the
underlying relationship and obscures the true scatter of the underlying data;
Using the logarithm does not improve the fit of the regression equation.
As a result, the simple straight line regression was used to analyse the differences in attributable
shares between different types of roads for periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure.


Austroads 2011
- 13 -
2.5 Calculation of the attributable share of expenditure
In order to determine the differences between cost functions for different road categories, the
proportion of expenditure that is attributable to road use has to be determined. This can be
calculated using the regression equation derived previously (using the approach illustrated in
Figure 2) by assuming the variable proportion of the expenditure relationship represents the
proportion of expenditure that is attributable to road use. Figure 5 illustrates this method.

Figure 5: Illustrative example of calculating the proportion of expenditure attributable to road use
Using a straight line equation, the proportion of expenditure that is attributable to road use can be
determined by relating the variable proportion of expenditure to the total expenditure. The variable
part of expenditure is equal to the total expenditure minus the intercept. The green line in Figure 5
shows the total expenditure while the red line illustrates the variable part of expenditure. The
appropriate road use value (point on the x-axis) that is used for this calculation is the average road
use of all road segments included in the regression equation. Figure 6 shows the equation used to
derive the attributable share of expenditure from the regression results.

Figure 6: How to derive the share of expenditure attributable to road use
Importantly, this method can only be applied if the coefficient of the road use parameter in the
regression result is significant. A significance level of 99% was adopted. If the coefficient of the
road use parameter is not significant, the method cannot be applied as there is no strong
relationship between road use and expenditure overall.
Regression result: Periodic expenditure = a +b*road use
% expenditure attributable to road use = 100 x (b*average road use)
(a +b*average road use)


Austroads 2011
- 14 -
2.6 Testing Road Network Classifications
Table 2 in Section 1.2 shows the different road network classifications investigated in this study.
Each states road inventory contains different classifications of roads, some of these are consistent
across the states such as sealed and unsealed roads while others such as terrain and pavement
type are recorded differently in each state. Due to the varying classifications used in each state
some network classifications could not be tested for all states.
There is a significant overlap between some road network classifications. For example, AADT
groups could be expected to show similar results to an urban/rural classification as AADT is
generally higher in urban areas. Similarly, pavement type may give similar results to a functional
classification as arterial roads are likely to have higher standard pavements on average than local
roads.
Differences in the attributable share of expenditure for roads within each road network
classification category were tested by performing the regression and attributable share analysis
outlined in Section 2.3 on each of the road network classification categories (e.g. Wet, Medium,
Dry for the Climate classification). If the results of all regressions were significant, the attributable
shares for each category were compared in order to determine the classifications that exhibited the
greatest variations in attributable shares between categories.
As discussed in Section 2.4, the analysis cannot determine whether a combination of road use
parameters would be more appropriate than a single parameter. As a result, the road network
classification analysis was performed using one road use parameter consistently for each
expenditure category.
In addition to the statistical analysis, a review was undertaken of available State Road Authority
documentation on strategies, processes and associated information used to assist State Road
Authorities to make project level decisions regarding maintenance funding allocations. The review
included an analysis of the road network classification criteria used by each State Road Authority,
to assist the decision making process for allocation of maintenance funding. Findings from this
were compared with the quantitative results to determine the most appropriate overall road network
classification.
2.7 Limitations
While the methodology discussed in this section is theoretically sound, the quality of the results
depends strongly on the quality of the data. A number of issues impacted on the quality of the
data. Table 7 summarises these data limitations and the assumptions inherent in this study. The
table also provides an overview of the expected consequences of these limitations and
assumptions.
Table 7: Limitations and consequences
Data Limitation Consequence
Road network and
expenditure
The State Road Authorities all record expenditure
through a separate system than their road network
data.
In order to compare expenditure to road use, the two data
sets must be combined which requires a number of
assumptions detailed in Appendix A to E.
Road inventory data
There is limited data available on the age of
pavements or the timing of the previous intervention.
As timing of previous periodic maintenance or rehabilitation
was only available for some roads in NSWand Queensland,
analysis based on cumulative road use for all roads was not
possible, and average annual road use therefore had to be
used for most of the analysis

Austroads 2011
- 15 -
Data Limitation Consequence
AADT
AADT figures were provided for all arterial road links
for all states, it was advised that some of the figures
were several years old and were being revised; others
had been estimated using surrounding road links.
Although it was acknowledged that the AADT figures for all
links were not completely accurate, as they are the best
figures available it was assumed that over the whole network
the inaccurate AADTs would not significantly affect the
results.
Heavy vehicle counts
Only information on % HV available, limited breakdown
of truck size or mass.
Assumptions required to derive PCU, AGM and ESA lead to
less accurate road use variables. Deriving PCU, AGM and
ESA from AADT and the proportion of heavy vehicles, implies
that all road use parameters are likely to be highly correlated.
Expenditure
States provided 10 years or less of expenditure data.
As rehabilitation is generally carried out every 25 - 40
years this does not cover an entire life-cycle.
The approach implicitly assumes that the area of the road
network treated is a representative sample of the entire state
arterial network.
Expenditure
The subcategories of expenditure for D and B2 are not
consistent across States. Different regions within
states do not record expenditure consistently.
As long as the whole of expenditure in categories B2 and D is
consistent, this limitation can be overcome. However,
inconsistencies between regions raise questions about the
quality of data.
Expenditure
State Road Authorities have different maintenance
practices. It has to be assumed that expenditure
occurs at the optimal point in time.
As not all of the expenditure occurs at an optimal point in
time, the data includes outliers. These roads were treated
before or after the optimal intervention point.
Expenditure
Each State Road Authority has different budgets and
strategies in dealing with periodic maintenance and
rehabilitation. Depending on the road classification,
treatments will be performed at different levels of road
deterioration. These budgets and strategies will
change over time.
Changing budgets and strategies will lead to varying degrees
of timing of treatment intervention (across the spectrum from
"worst first" to more pro-active treatments). Changing budgets
and strategies will therefore obscure the relationship between
road use and expenditure as the relationship between
damage and expenditure is not constant.
Road network
classifications
Not all road network classifications can be tested for all
States.
Results obtained for one State only cannot be tested for other
State. Their relevance can therefore not be assessed on a
national basis.
Local road data
Detailed data on expenditure and road use on local
roads was not available to compare the results for
arterial roads to local roads.
The statistical analysis cannot provide any conclusion on
whether cost functions for local roads differ from arterial
roads.

Using arterial road use and expenditure data from State Road Authorities has limitations as many
attributes are not collected for the entire network. Also, the analysis assumes a constant
relationship between road deterioration and expenditure. However, in reality budgets and asset
management strategies differ by state and over time. Shortages in funding lead to road
maintenance being performed on only the most critical areas; causing an increasing backlog of
required maintenance. This results in actual expenditure not being a reflection of the need for
maintenance each year. These asset management issues will result in the observed relationship
between road use and expenditure being different to the engineering based relationship between
road use and optimal maintenance expenditure.Local roads data was obtained for Victoria and an
analysis is provided in Appendix F. The level of disaggregation of expenditure and road use was
insufficient to compare the results with arterial roads results. The following limitations constrained
the analysis of local roads data:
Insufficient disaggregation of expenditure data, no separate amounts for:
- sealed and unsealed roads in all LGAs;
- periodic maintenance and rehabilitation;
- roads in the different traffic volume ranges;
Insufficient disaggregation generally, e.g.:
- Traffic and expenditure for greater number of narrower daily traffic volume ranges;
- Traffic and expenditure data for every individual road; and
- Heavy vehicle traffic data for all roads.

Austroads 2011
- 16 -
Local roads are generally managed by local government authorities with some financial assistance
from State and Federal Governments. Local road data was not analysed from States other than
Victoria as the limitations associated with the Victorian local road data was expected to be
encountered for other States local road data.
Overall these data limitations imply that there is limited confidence in the results of the analysis. In
particular, changing strategies, budgets and polices over time are likely to have a strong impact on
the relationship between expenditure and road use.
2.8 International Comparisons
A review of international practice was undertaken in order to examine the different approaches
used for calculating the attributable share of expenditure.
New Zealand
New Zealand developed its cost allocation model in 1978 to coincide with the introduction of the
Road User Charging system. The model has been updated several times since, most recently in
2001. The calculation of the attributable share of road expenditure for different user groups is
based loosely around an OECD technical report released in 1984. Due to the dissimilar
pavements, climatic conditions and network layout of the New Zealand road system compared to
other OECD countries, the attributable shares were adjusted using local engineering and asset
management knowledge to reflect these differences. This has produced an allocation system
based partly on technical data describing the relationship between road use and expenditure and
partly on qualitative analysis by engineers and asset managers.
United States
The United States most recently updated its cost allocation procedures in 1997 in response to a
review carried out by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The US model has several cost
categories aligning closely with those used by the NTC. Engineering and design principles are the
main influence on cost allocation for all cost categories, while a sophisticated simulation model is
used to estimate the attributable share of the structural deterioration which leads to road
maintenance and rehabilitation costs.
Costs for pavement reconstruction, rehabilitation, and resurfacing (3R), are allocated to different
vehicle classes on the basis of each vehicle's estimated contribution to pavement distresses
necessitating the improvements. The same general approach is used as in the 1982 Federal
HCAS, but new Pavement Distress Models were developed for this study that reflect the latest
theoretical advances in understanding factors that influence pavement distress.
United Kingdom
In 2005, NERA prepared a series of reports on lorry track and environment costs for the UK
Department of Transport. Attributable shares were derived on the basis of methods used in the
former annual track cost allocation model. It appears that the attributable shares are mainly
based on engineering relationships.
NERA observed:
With regard to the question of whether different allocation rules should be used for different types
of roads (motorways, other trunk roads, local authority principal roads, local authority other roads),
there is some limited evidence [] that different power rules are appropriate for different types of
roads surface (NERA, 2005).

Austroads 2011
- 17 -
Europe
CE Delft (2008) compared the different types of cost allocation rules applied in Europe. Three
different approaches were identified:
The equivalency factor method: This defines certain proportionality factors for each
vehicle class and cost category which express the responsibility or the causation of the
vehicles for the level of total costs. Very significant equivalency factors for instance are
Equivalent Standard Axle Loads (ESAL), which derive from the results of the AASHTO road
test in the US and increase with the 4th power of axle loadings. These are applied to
damage sensitive surface layers. Capacity related costs are distributed by Passenger Car
Equivalents and fixed cost blocks are assumed to be linear to pure vehicle movements.
Major problems arise from the inter-dependency of asset dimensions, from weak empirical
data and from high levels of data aggregation. Accordingly, the results of different
equivalency factor applications may diverge widely. The method is the most frequently
applied approach to allocate total costs in road infrastructure accounts.
The econometric approach: This approach was used in the Austrian infrastructure cost
study. It relates cost data to traffic flow information across links and over time. The
regression coefficients then provide cost shares for the different vehicle types. The
method, in principle, is more objective than the equivalency factor method, but in practice,
the significance of results is low due to high co-linearities of flow data among different
vehicle classes. The results range around the upper limit of applied equivalency factor
methods.
A game theory application: This approach can be used to link the engineering knowledge
of equivalency factor methods with a scientifically sound and objective allocation scheme.
The approach uses the design and construction principles of roads to construct a
characteristic cost function, which is then applied to a continuum of players (road users).
The result of the co-operative game is that all users negotiate a fair share of total costs for
themselves. The procedure was not applied to complete road networks, but example
calculations support a rather cautious approach by allocating lower costs to heavy traffic. (CE
Delft, 2008)
Interestingly, of the countries reviewed, only Austria has used an econometric approach
comparable with the approach used in this study. Other countries use an approach that is more
focused on engineering principles. This finding is also confirmed by Link (1999) which includes a
comparison of different cost allocation methods and their implications for overall costs and prices
for a range of European countries.

Austroads 2011
- 18 -
2.9 Conclusion
Figure 7 shows that road use causes road wear and deterioration in condition which requires
expenditure to restore the road to an appropriate condition. The relationship between road use
and expenditure is not as direct as that between road use and road wear.

Figure 7: Relationship between road use and expenditure
The international approaches investigated all take a similar approach to cost allocation in focussing
on the relationship between road use and road wear, which is more direct. In some cases the
relationship was derived primarily through engineering studies. In some smaller countries local
engineering and asset management knowledge was used to revise figures to better represent local
conditions. Austria is the only European country where an econometric approach was used to
determine attributable shares.
In contrast, this project has used existing road use and expenditure data to derive cost functions.
This approach assumes that there is a direct relationship between damage and expenditure. As
indicated above this may not always be the case. It is therefore difficult to perform an international
comparison of the statistical approach. Nevertheless, the approach in this study is consistent with
that applied in Martin (1994) which has formed the basis for the NTC cost allocation approach for
over a decade.

Road use Wear Expenditure

Austroads 2011
- 19 -
3 RESULTS EXPENDITURE CATEGORY B2 PERIODIC
MAINTENANCE
3.1 The overall attributable share
Figure 8 shows for each state the proportions of periodic maintenance expenditure that are
attributable to road use based on each road use parameter.

Figure 8: Proportion of periodic maintenance expenditure attributable to road use
3

The following observations can be made from Figure 8:
Between States there are relatively large differences in the attributable share when
comparing results for a particular road use parameter. The AADT results show the largest
variation in attributable shares ranging from 15% in South Australia to 58% for Victoria.
Within States, the attributable share of expenditure is different with each road use parameter;
however, as explained in Section 2.3, the analysis cannot be used to determine whether
adopting a combination of road use parameters would result in a higher attributable share
than the single parameter with the strongest relationship.
Considering the results for Queensland, the attributable share of expenditure is slightly
higher when using cumulative road use parameters than with the corresponding non-
cumulative parameters.

3
No attributable share is provided for ESA in South Australia as the p-value of the coefficient is not
significant even at the 90% level.

Austroads 2011
- 20 -
Based on the AGM results, the weighted average attributable share for the four states is 37%
which is calculated by weighting the attributable percentage for each state by the total annual
category B2 expenditure by each state. This is considerably less than the attributable percentage
of 70% (60% to AGM and 10% to PCU) in the current NTC cost allocation template. However, the
data limitations discussed in section 2.6 should be noted when interpreting the results.
When testing road network classifications it is necessary to select one road use parameter to be
used consistently throughout the analysis in order for results to be comparable. The variation in
attributable shares for the different road use parameters observed in Figure 8 raises the question
of which road use parameter should be used to test different road network classifications.
In pavement deterioration models the relationship between road wear and road use is generally
driven by either AGM or ESA. Pavement design is based on forecast ESAs so it is logical that
rehabilitation expenditure would be most strongly related to ESA. However, for periodic
maintenance it is not obvious which parameter is likely to provide the strongest relationship with
surface wear as it only involves resurfacing of pavements. Compared to AGM and ESA, AADT
and PCU are likely to be weaker predictors of pavement deterioration and hence pavement
maintenance expenditure.
Consequently, it was considered that either AGM or ESA should be adopted as the road use
parameter to test different road network classifications for periodic maintenance expenditure. In
order to choose between AGM and ESA, the relative fit (measured by the r-square) of the
regression equations was considered for both parameters. For all States the fit of the regression
equation was considerably higher when using AGM
4
. As a result, AGM was used to test road
network classifications for periodic maintenance.
3.2 Road Network Classifications
As discussed in section 2.6, not all road network classifications could be tested for all States due to
unavailability of data. Additionally, for some road network classifications in some States, road use
was found not to be a statistically significant variable in explaining variations in expenditure. If the
p-value of the road use parameter was not significant at the 99% level, that States results were not
included for that road network classification. If the p-value of the road use parameter was not
significant at the 99% level for one category only of a road network classification, data was
aggregated to test whether combinations of categories would lead to a significant result. Where
aggregation of categories did not lead to significant results, the road network classification could
not be included.

4
Note that the r-squares were generally below 22%. While this suggests a relatively low fit such a result is to
be expected for the reasons discussed in section 2.3. Importantly, all p-values of the attributable shares
shown in Figure 8 were significant at the 90% level, i.e. the attributable shares were reasonably statistically
significant notwithstanding the wide scatter in the data.

Austroads 2011
- 21 -

3.2.1 Climate
Climate categories were defined on the basis of total rainfall for the previous 3 years. Queensland
and New South Wales were divided into three climate categories including dry, medium and wet
climate. Victoria and South Australia were divided into dry climate and medium climate categories.
A map of the climate categories for each State is provided in Appendix E.
Figure 9 shows the different attributable shares for each climate category in each State when
roads are differentiated by climate categories.
Results for cumulative road use
The analysis of different road network classifications was undertaken using both cumulative
and non-cumulative road use parameters. Cumulative road use is the total road use since the
previous treatment and is determined by multiplying annual road use by the number of years
since the previous treatment taking into account growth in traffic over the years. However,
using cumulative road use, the road use parameter was not significant at the 99% level when
disaggregating the data into different road categories. The figure below shows the data for
periodic maintenance expenditure and cumulative road use for roads on which periodic
maintenance (rather than rehabilitation) was also the previous treatment.
Queensland B2 previous treatment B2
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
0 20,000,000 40,000,000 60,000,000 80,000,000 100,000,000 120,000,000 140,000,000 160,000,000
Cumulative AGM per lane
E
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

p
e
r

l
a
n
e

k
m
Rural Urban Linear (Rural) Linear (Urban)

Illustration of testing urban/rural classification using cumulative road use
The two lines represent the regression equation for urban and rural road use. While the lines
seem to vary in slope and intercept, the results cannot be used to determine the attributable
shares of expenditure as the road use coefficient for the urban regression is not significant at
the 99% level. This is partly explained by the low number and the wide scatter of the
observations in the urban category.
Overall, no statistically significant results could be obtained when testing road network
classifications using cumulative road use variables.


Austroads 2011
- 22 -

Figure 9: Results for climate road network classification
Table 8 shows these results in tabular form. AGM-km was used to test road network classifications
for periodic maintenance.
Table 8: Attributable percentages Climate
State Dry climate Medium climate Wet climate
Victoria 59.0 34.6 N/A
New South Wales 8.8 35.3 20.9
Queensland 19.2 38.5 14.0
South Australia 16.1 21.0 N/A

The results in Figure 9 and Table 8 show that
With the exception of Victoria, the attributable share for the medium climate category is
higher than for dry and wet climate. The Victorian results contradict this pattern. The
analysis for Victoria was based on longer road sections than for the other states. As a result,
the data is aggregated and averaged at a higher level which may distort the results.
The variations between climate categories are relatively large. The largest variation between
dry and medium zones can be found in New South Wales, where the attributable share for
roads in the medium climate category is 26.5 percentage points higher than for roads in the
dry climate category. The largest variation between medium and wet climate can be found in
Queensland where the attributable share for roads in the medium climate category (38.5%) is
24.5 percentage points higher than for roads in the wet climate category (14.0%).
There are significant variations between States when considering the same climate category.
The largest variation can be found for the dry climate category where the difference between
the attributable share in Victoria (59.0%) and the attributable share in New South Wales
(8.8%) is 51.2 percentage points.
Periodic maintenance comprises mainly resealing of chip-seal surfaced roads to restore
waterproofing or skid resistance and thin asphalt resurfacing on urban roads for similar purposes.

Austroads 2011
- 23 -
In general terms skid resistance gradually declines due to the effect of traffic polishing the stone
chips and pressing them deeper into the asphalt binder. Deterioration in waterproofing is more a
function of age as the asphalt gradually oxidises and becomes brittle and prone to cracking due to
the effect of sunlight. Cracking may also occur due to deeper seated settlement or inadequate
drainage but in such cases the response would probably be patching (B1) or rehabilitation (D)
rather than resurfacing.
Based on the above engineering considerations, more highly trafficked roads might be expected to
have a higher attributable share as the timing of resurfacing is determined by the passage of traffic
whereas on lower traffic roads age rather than traffic is likely to have a stronger influence on
periodic maintenance expenditure implying a lower share attributable to road use. Furthermore, in
both cases intervention is likely to occur more promptly in wet climate zones than dry climate
zones. Reduced skid resistance is less of a safety hazard where roads are usually dry. Surface
cracking is less of a problem in dry areas if there is no rainfall to enter and weaken pavements and
it may be possible to defer resealing which would further reduce the linkage between road use and
periodic maintenance expenditure.
Considering funding guidelines, of the five State Road Authorities that provided information,
climate is used by Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales. Conversely, climate is
not used in the funding guidelines provided by Victoria or Tasmania. Queensland, Western
Australia and New South Wales are relatively larger states, compared to Victoria and Tasmania. It
can be inferred from this that for larger land areas, where climate materially changes from one
location to another, the use of climate is considered a key criterion in the allocation of funding for
periodic maintenance and road rehabilitation. This may also explain why the results for Victoria
show a different pattern than those for the other states. Smaller land area and therefore smaller
variations in climate may cause the Victorian results to be different. However, the variation in
attributable shares between dry and medium climate zones in Victoria is relatively large and cannot
be explained.
The following conclusions can be drawn from the results for the climate road network classification:
The attributable share varies considerably between categories;
The results for dry and medium climate categories follow a consistent pattern of lower
attributable shares in dry climate categories and are consistent with engineering expectations
and State Road Authority funding guidelines, except for Victoria;
Roads in the wet climate category in New South Wales and Queensland exhibit lower
attributable shares than the corresponding medium category which is at variance with
expectations and indicates that other factors influence periodic maintenance expenditure
decisions in these areas.
Overall, a road network classification according to climate appears to provide a useful
differentiation. However, the data limitations discussed in section 2.6 and the large difference
between results for different states suggest that the results should be viewed with caution.
Moreover, in some states climate categories are closely related to traffic volume and pavement
type. This implies that the results may be reflective of a range of different factors that affect the
relationship between road use and expenditure.


Austroads 2011
- 24 -
3.2.2 Urban/Rural
Table 9 and Table 10 show results based on an urban/rural road network classification using
groups of local government areas and roadside characteristics respectively. AGM-km was used to
test road network classifications for periodic maintenance.
Table 9: Attributable percentages Urban/ Rural (LGA groups)
State Urban Rural
Victoria Results not significant
New South Wales 27.6 27.9
Queensland Results not significant
South Australia 55.8 13.7

Table 10: Attributable percentages Urban/ Rural (Roadside)
State
Urban and
Semi-urban
Grass Treed
Victoria 21.0 34.9 33.7

The results show that for New South Wales the attributable shares do not differ between urban and
rural roads, whereas South Australia shows large variations between urban and rural roads. For
Victoria and Queensland the results based on LGA groups were not significant but for Victoria the
alternative classification of urban/rural roads based on roadside characteristics, whilst statistically
significant, did not reveal any great differentiation between categories.
From an engineering point of view, the attributable share of expenditure could be expected to be
higher on urban arterial roads than rural roads since urban arterials are more likely to be
resurfaced due to traffic effects than age as a result of higher traffic volumes. Even though the
marginal impact of each vehicle is likely to be lower on an urban road, the total proportion of
expenditure that is attributable to road use is higher due to the higher traffic volumes. This
expectation is confirmed by the South Australian results only.
State Road Authority maintenance guidelines do not appear to use an urban / rural distinction to
assist periodic maintenance funding decisions.
Overall, the urban/rural classification does not result in large variations in attributable shares for
most states. It is also not a consideration State Road Authority funding guidelines.
3.2.3 Terrain
Information on terrain was only available for New South Wales. Table 11 shows that the
differences between attributable shares for terrain are relatively small. AGM-km was used to test
road network classifications for periodic maintenance.
Table 11: Attributable percentages Terrain
State Urban Flat Rolling Hilly
New South Wales 36.3 33.6 22.9 37.4


Austroads 2011
- 25 -
The attributable share of expenditure could be expected to be higher for hilly and rolling terrain.
Roads in these areas are likely to have more bends and gradients, both of which will result in
greater forces between vehicle tyres and the road surface. On the other hand roads in hilly terrain
may have a higher proportion of fixed expenditure as it is more difficult to access hilly terrain and
geological forces play a more important role. As a result, the attributable share for the road in the
hilly terrain could be relatively lower.
The results do not definitively confirm either of these possibilities as the attributable share for roads
in flat terrain is similar to that for roads in hilly terrain. Terrain is also not a factor that is specifically
distinguished in State Road Authority guidelines for periodic maintenance.
Overall, a road network classification according to terrain is not supported by the results. Even if
the results suggested that a road network classification based on terrain is sensible, data for terrain
is only available for NSW which would make it difficult to apply such a classification.
3.2.4 Traffic volume
A road network classification based on traffic volume was tested with results presented in Table
12. AGM-km was used to test road network classifications for periodic maintenance.
Table 12: Attributable percentages Functional Classification
State Low AADT Medium AADT High AADT
Victoria 21.9 39.4 18.5
South Australia Results not significant

The results for both Victoria and New South Wales show that the medium AADT category has the
highest attributable share. For Queensland the attributable share decreases consistently with
higher traffic volumes.
Roads with higher AADT might be expected to have a higher attributable share of expenditure as
they are more likely to be resurfaced due to traffic wear before they become old enough to require
resurfacing due to age. Even though roads that are designed for higher traffic volumes are likely to
have lower marginal costs per vehicle, the difference in marginal costs is likely to be more than
offset by the higher traffic volume. Overall, the results do not confirm these expectations as the
results for Queensland show the opposite pattern and not consistent pattern can be observed for
Victoria or New South Wales.
Based on the information provided, the only State Road Authority to directly use traffic volume
(typically AADT), as an input to periodic maintenance funding decision processes is Western
Australia. Considering State Road Authority funding guidelines, there is a very strong emphasis on
functional classification in the allocation of road network maintenance funding rather than traffic
volume alone. Indeed, all State Road Authorities analysed used a functional classification as a key
criterion in allocating funding to their periodic maintenance programs.
Overall, the results do not support a road network classification according to traffic volume.


Austroads 2011
- 26 -
3.2.5 Functional classification
A functional road network classification can be used to distinguish:
Arterial and local roads; and/or
Different types of arterial (or local) roads (e.g. in Victoria, M, A, B and C roads are
distinguished).
The data obtained from the State road authorities included arterial roads only. As discussed in
Section 2.7 detailed local road data is not available to compare the difference in attributable shares
between arterial and local roads. As a result, no statistical evidence can be provided to distinguish
local and arterial roads. However, funding decisions made for local and arterial roads are based
on different criteria as arterial roads are maintained by State Road Authorities and local roads are
maintained by local governments.
A functional road network classification has the advantage that it differentiates local roads.
Although freeways and arterial roads maintained by State Road Authorities carry upwards of 70%
of heavy freight traffic, they constitute less that 20% of the overall length of the Australian road
network. The remainder of the network is predominantly local roads, maintained by municipal
councils. Typically, these local roads are designed and constructed to lower standards relative to
freeways and arterial roads. Therefore, local roads should be categorised differently in the context
of functional classification.
A classification of different categories of arterial roads (e.g. M, A, B and C) could not be tested
directly, however the results for traffic volume could be viewed as a proxy. As the traffic volume
results did not support a traffic volume based classification, a functional classification of arterial
roads also appears unlikely to provide a useful differentiation.
3.2.6 Surface type
Table 13 shows the results for a surface type road network classification in Queensland. The
Queensland data was disaggregated in a large number of surface type categories but as 72% of
the Queensland road network has a bitumen seal, the data was aggregated into two main
categories.
Table 13: Attributable percentages Surface Type
State Bitumen seal Other seal
Queensland 30.0 34.6
Other Seal includes asphalt and concrete
In New South Wales, four surface types were distinguished (asphaltic concrete, concrete, spray
seal and unsealed roads) but results were not significant for all categories. In South Australia,
89% of roads had the same surface type.
All of the State Road Authorities that provided their periodic maintenance funding guidelines,
incorporated surface type as key criterion in the funding allocation decision making process.
Generally, there is very strong evidence of the use of surface type as a key factor in allocating road
network maintenance funding.
Attributable shares for periodic maintenance would be expected to vary with different surface
types. For example, the relationship between surface wear and road use differs between asphalt
and chip seal roads. The results for surface type could not be confirmed with statistical analysis.

Austroads 2011
- 27 -
3.2.7 Pavement Type
Information on pavement type was only available for Queensland and New South Wales. Only the
Queensland data gave statistically significant results.
Flexible pavements are defined as A pavement which obtains its load spreading properties mainly
by inter-granular pressure, mechanical interlock, and cohesion, between the particles of the
pavement material. In the case of an asphalt pavement, this further depends on the adhesion
between the bitumen binder and the aggregate, and the cohesion of that binder. Generally, a
flexible pavement is any pavement in which high strength Portland cement concrete is not used as
a construction layer. (Austroads Glossary of Terms AP-C87 08). Non-flexible pavements are
generally rigid pavements which are composed of concrete or have a concrete base-course. Table
14 shows the results based on pavement type.
Table 14: Attributable percentages Pavement Type
State Flexible Non-flexible

The attributable share of periodic maintenance for non-flexible pavements might be expected to be
higher than for flexible pavements as non-flexible pavements are generally used for roads that
carry high traffic volumes and therefore are more likely to require resurfacing due to wear than age.
The results are consistent with this expectation, the attributable share of non-flexible pavements is
higher than for flexible pavements.
As periodic maintenance mainly includes activities such as resurfacing roads, surface type might
be expected to provide a better differentiation than pavement type. Pavement type is likely to be a
more relevant differentiator for rehabilitation expenditure than periodic maintenance.
3.2.8 Unseal ed roads
Table 15 provides the results for a road classification based on unsealed and sealed roads.
Results for this road network classification were only significant for New South Wales. The
proportion of unsealed roads in the Queensland dataset was relatively small so statistically
significant results could not be obtained.
Table 15: Attributable percentages Sealed/Unsealed
State Sealed Unsealed

The results show little variation in the attributable share when a sealed/unsealed road classification
is tested. Periodic maintenance expenditure for unsealed roads is likely to be minimal but mainly
driven by numbers of axles and tyres which is best measured by PCU-km. Seasonal surface
grading of unsealed roads is part of routine maintenance and gravel re-sheeting is defined by NTC
as being included in rehabilitation, which leaves little expenditure in the periodic maintenance
category.
Due to the fundamentally different drivers of periodic maintenance of unsealed roads versus
sealed roads this would appear to be a useful basis for classification, however the results of the
analysis of actual road use and expenditure data did not provide a significant differentiation.

Austroads 2011
- 28 -
3.2.9 AusLink roads
In the same way as unsealed roads can be viewed as being at one end of the road standard
spectrum, AusLink roads are at the other end. AusLink roads are designed to the highest
standards as they provide the main connections between capital cities and many of them carry
large volumes of heavy freight vehicles. While the marginal costs of road use per vehicle are
relatively low on AusLink roads, the attributable share is likely to be high as the lower marginal
costs are more than offset by higher traffic volumes. Also, AusLink roads would be designed to
better withstand external influences. For example, these roads would have the highest standard
drainage systems to protect their pavements against moisture ingress and premature deterioration.
Maintenance funding of AusLink roads is provided by the Australian Government with a smaller
proportion provided by State governments. As a result, different maintenance levels are applied to
AusLink roads. Overall, it is concluded that AusLink roads should be distinguished from other
roads as on average they are built to the highest standards.
3.3 Overall findings
Section 1.2 described the following criteria for selecting the most appropriate road network
classification:
There are large differences between the attributable shares for each category;
There is a clear pattern of attributable shares between categories;
The pattern and the classification can be supported by engineering relationships (e.g. on
pavement deterioration); and
The classification can be supported by results from more than one state.
From the results it can be concluded tentatively that the following road network classifications
appear to best meet these criteria:
a climate based road network classification;
a classification of sealed and unsealed roads; and
a separate category for AusLink roads.
Additionally, a functional classification that distinguishes arterial and local roads appears to provide
a good differentiation as funding decisions for arterial and local roads are based on different
guidelines and practices.
However, as there are large differences between results for different states, and in many cases
these do not have obvious explanations, the conclusions should be regarded with caution. The
data limitations discussed in section 2.6 are a further reason for regarding the conclusions with
caution.
The road network classifications shown in Table 16 are obtained when the above conclusions are
combined. The arterial/local road network classification is not applied to AusLink roads as all
AusLink roads are arterials. Even though unsealed roads include both arterial and local roads, the
attributable share is not expected to differ greatly between arterial unsealed roads and local
unsealed roads as the wear mechanism is the same.

Austroads 2011
- 29 -
Table 16: Road network classification categories for periodic maintenance
Primary road network category Secondary road network category
AusLink roads
Roads in dry climate zone
Arterial roads
Local roads
Roads in medium climate zone
Arterial roads
Local roads
Roads in wet climate zone
Arterial roads
Local roads
Unsealed roads

Table 17 shows how the attributable shares of periodic maintenance expenditure might differ
between different categories. The attributable shares for the different climate categories in the
table are based on the results for each category as discussed in this section. The attributable
shares for AusLink and unsealed roads are estimated relative to the medium climate category
results. They are estimates only and need to be confirmed by further research.
Table 17: Attributable proportions for each road network classification category - B2 Periodic Maintenance
Road network category AusLink
Arterial roads
Unsealed
NTC
template
Climate
Dry
Climate
Medium
Climate
Wet
Proportion of expenditure attributable to
road use and selected road use
parameter
45% to
AGM-km
10-25% to
AGM-km
35-45% to
AGM-km
10-25% to
AGM-km
80-90% to
PCU-km
70%
(10 PCU,
60 AGM)

Each road category still includes a wide range of roads with different characteristics. As a result,
there is still likely to be a high extent of averaging within each category.
The current NTC cost allocation template attributes 10% of periodic maintenance expenditure
based on PCU-km, 60% based on AGM-km and 30% as non-attributable. This implies that overall
70% of periodic maintenance expenditure is attributable to road use.
While the above results for periodic maintenance indicate attributable shares that are considerably
lower than the attributable shares in the current NTC template, the results should not necessarily
be viewed as a recommendation for change. Instead, they should be interpreted as indicative of
the high degree of uncertainty that still exists about the relationship between road use and periodic
maintenance expenditure and the need for on-going research to improve confidence in or refine
the current attributable shares.

Austroads 2011
- 30 -
4 RESULTS EXPENDITURE CATEGORY D -
REHABILITATION
4.1 The overall attributable share
Figure 10 shows for each state the proportions of rehabilitation expenditure that are attributable to
road use based on each road use parameter.

Figure 10: Proportion of rehabilitation expenditure attributable to road use
The following observations can be made from Figure 10:
Between States, there are relatively large differences in the attributable share when
comparing results for a particular road use parameter. The ESA results show the largest
difference 31 percentage points when comparing Victoria (16%) and New South Wales
(47%);
Within States, except for Victoria, there are relatively large variations in the attributable
shares derived using the different road use parameters;
In contrast to the category B2 (periodic maintenance) results, the results for category D
(rehabilitation) based on cumulative road use for Queensland are slightly lower than those for
non-cumulative road use.
Weighting the attributable shares based on ESA for each State by the relative amounts of category
D expenditure in each State, the overall weighted average attributable share is 29.2%. This is
approximately half the attributable percentage of 45% to ESA-km in the current NTC cost allocation
template. However, the results should be interpreted with the data limitations discussed in section
2.6 in mind.

Austroads 2011
- 31 -
Figure 10 again raises the question of which road use parameter should be used to test different
road network classifications for category D expenditure. As explained earlier, the analysis cannot
determine which road use parameter should be used or whether a combination of road use
parameters would be optimal. The r-square for regressions with either AGM or ESA did not differ
considerably
5
. Taking into account the relationship between road use and road wear, engineering
relationships strongly indicate that ESA should be used as the road use parameter for rehabilitation
expenditure. Therefore, ESA was used consistently to test different road network classifications.
4.2 Road network classifications
Testing road network classifications for rehabilitation expenditure resulted in a high number of
results that are not significant at the 99% level. This is due to a smaller number of road segments
with non-zero expenditure in this category. As rehabilitation is undertaken less frequently than
periodic maintenance, there are fewer road segments with rehabilitation expenditure in the dataset
than road segments with periodic maintenance expenditure. When the road segments are divided
into different categories to test road network classifications there are even smaller numbers of road
segments with non-zero expenditure in each group. These relatively small sample sizes were
therefore an additional data limitation for the rehabilitation analysis.
4.2.1 Climate
Table 18 shows the results for a climate based road network classification.
Table 18: Attributable percentage - Climate
State Dry climate Medium climate Wet climate
Victoria 35.0 6.0* N/A
New South Wales 76.6 52.4 14.6*
* Only significant at the 95% significant level
The results for Victoria and New South Wales show that the attributable share in the dry climate
category is higher than for the medium climate category. The results for Queensland contradict the
pattern observed for Victoria and New South Wales. The proportion of rehabilitation expenditure
attributable to road use appears to be higher for roads in medium climate categories compared to
dry or wet climate. No statistically significant results could be obtained for South Australia.
In general, deterioration in pavement condition is influenced by pavement loading and water
ingress, and by the strength to which pavements were originally designed and built. Roads in
wetter climates might therefore be expected to have a lower attributable share because a larger
proportion of the expenditure is likely to be for repairing pavement damage due to water entering
and weakening the pavement, resulting in premature deterioration or failure. The New South
Wales results are consistent with this expectation. However, the results for Victoria and
Queensland suggest suggests that other factors are also influencing the attributable shares.
One possible factor is that, even though there might be a strong relationship between road use and
road wear, the relationship between pavement condition and rehabilitation expenditure is not
direct. For example, budget constraints may cause road agencies to defer rehabilitation on roads
in dry areas or roads that carry little traffic where the consequences of such an approach are

5
The r-square was generally below 10%. However, the p-values of the coefficients were all significant at the
90% level.

Austroads 2011
- 32 -
minor, or they may fix localised pavement failures by patching which is reported in routine
maintenance expenditure rather than rehabilitation.
It could be considered that even when a pavement in a wet climate zone fails prematurely due to
water entering and weakening the pavement the failure would not have occurred if no traffic had
used the road and therefore a large proportion of the expenditure should be attributable to road
use. However, apart from counter arguments that this would not have occurred if drainage
maintenance had been more timely or temporary axle load limits had been imposed, the effect of
such a failure is to weaken the relationship between road use and expenditure. This is because, in
comparison with other pavement segments that wear out normally under expected traffic over 20
40 years, premature failures can occur under much less traffic, thereby widening the range of
average annual rehabilitation expenditure per unit of road use observations in the statistical
analysis and increasing the proportion that appears to be non-attributable.
Overall, the Victorian and New South Wales results suggest that there are large variations in
attributable shares between different climate zones and therefore climate is likely to be a
reasonable road network classification. As climate is also used by three State Road Authorities as
a criterion to make funding decisions, it appears to provide a useful differentiation.
However, the results for Queensland differ considerably. Additionally, as noted in the periodic
maintenance section, climate zones are indirectly related to traffic volumes and pavement types so
the results may therefore simply reflect a combination of these factors. The additional data
limitations for the analysis of rehabilitation expenditure also imply that the results should be
interpreted with caution.
4.2.2 Urban/Rural
Table 19 shows the results for an urban/rural road network classification.
Table 19: Attributable percentage Urban/Rural (LGA)
State Urban Rural
Victoria Results not significant

The results for New South Wales show that the attributable share for rural roads is considerably
higher than for urban roads. The results for Queensland show little variation in the attributable
share for urban and rural categories.
Table 20 provides urban/rural results for Queensland using an alternative analysis in which roads
are disaggregated into urban and rural categories based on LGA groups.
Table 20: Attributable percentage Urban/ Rural
State
LGA group 1,2 3
Urban
LGA 4 - Rural LGA5 - Rural LGA6 - Remote
Queensland 22.6 22.0 11.4 8.1


Austroads 2011
- 33 -
The results for Queensland based on LGA group suggest that the attributable share of road use
decreases when moving from urban to rural roads. This is the opposite of the trend observed for
New South Wales.
For road rehabilitation funding decisions, Victoria uses a ranking formula to prioritise funding that
includes AADT as one of the inputs. A cap is placed on the maximum AADT in the ranking formula.
There are separate AADT caps for rural and urban. VicRoads has also introduced a social equity
funding category. An urban / rural distinction is also used by Western Australia as input parameters
for calculating benefit cost ratios, which are then use to rank potential road rehabilitation and
reconstruction projects. However, on balance State Road Authority use of an urban/rural
distinction is quite limited.
In view of the inconsistent results the urban/rural distinction is not considered to provide a useful
differentiation.
4.2.3 Traffic volume
Table 21 shows the results for a road network classification based on traffic volume.
Table 21: Attributable percentage Traffic volume
State Low AADT Medium AADT High AADT
Victoria 30.5 20.1 22.4

The results show that roads with low AADT seem to have a higher attributable share while roads
with high AADT seem to have a low attributable share. For Victoria, this trend is not consistent as
the medium AADT category has a slightly lower attributable share than the high AADT category.
For both Queensland and South Australia the results are not significant. As results are only
available for two States and the results for Victoria do not show large differences in attributable
shares, there is no strong evidence for a road network classification according to traffic volume.
4.2.4 Functional classification
The differences between arterial and local roads could not be tested using the statistical analysis.
As described in section 4.1 for periodic maintenance, the criteria for funding rehabilitation differ
between arterial and local roads as the funding sources differ.
While each of the State Road Authorities incorporate traffic volume into the parameters used to
develop their locally specific functional classification, distinguishing different arterial roads by their
function is more practical than using a road network classification based on traffic volume as traffic
volumes are more volatile.
The differences in attributable shares for arterial road subcategories are likely to be smaller than
the differences in attributable shares between arterial and local roads. This is particularly the case
because local government decisions on rehabilitation expenditure would be largely driven by
available funding. As the funding mechanisms between arterial and local roads differ considerably,
the lack of detailed local road data implies that differences in attributable shares between arterial
and local roads cannot be confirmed.

Austroads 2011
- 34 -
4.2.5 Pavement type
Table 22 shows the results for a road network classification based on pavement type. This
classification could only be tested for New South Wales and Queensland.
Table 22: Attributable percentage Pavement Type
New South Wales
Concrete Non-concrete
40.3 50.7
Queensland
Non-flexible Flexible
34.8 20.6

The results indicate that the attributable share for non-concrete pavements in New South Wales is
higher than the attributable share for concrete pavements. In contrast, the attributable share for
flexible pavements in Queensland is lower than for non-flexible pavements. If the quality of data
could be improved, it is expected that the results would lead to stronger conclusions. Overall, the
quantitative results are not conclusive.
Pavement type is used by some State Road Authorities to assist with funding decisions on
rehabilitation; however, the use of pavement category was often indirect. For example, surface
type was often used as a substitute for pavement category, presumably because robust details
regarding pavement category are not readily available. Based on limited information made
available, it appears that only New South Wales and Queensland have robust network wide
pavement category data that can be explicitly used to influence maintenance funding decisions.
Different pavement types have very different wear mechanisms and as such engineering principles
suggest that utilising pavement category for classifying the road network would be appropriate.
However, the apparent lack of a robust dataset in many states is likely to be an impediment to
utilising pavement category to classify the road network for cost allocation purposes. Based on the
often indirect use of pavement category data, and the apparent lack of a robust national dataset,
pavement type does not appear to provide a suitable basis for classifying the road network for cost
allocation purposes when using an econometric approach.
4.2.6 Unseal ed roads
Unsealed roads have different wear mechanisms compared to sealed roads. Road rehabilitation
expenditure on unsealed roads is considered to be mainly driven by the effects of traffic. Traffic
causes crushing and loss of material leading to a need for re-gravelling and rehabilitation works on
unsealed road. Even though no statistical analysis could be performed on unsealed versus sealed
roads, due to small datasets of unsealed roads, the fundamental difference in wear mechanisms is
considered important.
Based on the above factors it is considered that 90% of unsealed road rehabilitation expenditure
should be regarded as attributable to road use. The attributable share should be split between
ESA and PCU. ESA-km are likely to cause more of the deeper pavement wear while PCU-km is a
more appropriate parameter for re-gravelling expenditure. In the absence of a sufficiently large
dataset of unsealed roads to enable statistical analysis, proportions of 45% attributable to ESA-km
and 45% attributable to PCU-km are considered reasonable.
4.2.7 AusLink roads
AusLink roads may also have different wear characteristics when compared to other roads as they
are likely to include roads with the highest standard pavements. The attributable share of
rehabilitation expenditure is likely to be higher on AusLink roads when compared to non-AusLink
roads, as their condition is less affected by external factors. As a result, AusLink roads should be
differentiated from non-AusLink roads.

Austroads 2011
- 35 -
4.3 Overall finding
Conclusions based on the results for expenditure category D are similar to the findings for
expenditure category B2. From the results for rehabilitation, it can be confirmed that the following
road network classifications appear to best meet the criteria:
a climate based road network classification;
a classification of sealed and unsealed roads; and
a separate category for AusLink roads.
Additionally, a functional classification that distinguishes arterial and local roads appears to provide
a good differentiation as funding decisions for arterial and local roads are based on different
guidelines and practices. However, data limitations described in section 2.6 also apply to
rehabilitation expenditure so the results should be interpreted with caution.
Table 23 shows how attributable shares for different categories of roads may be distinguished
based on the results presented in this section. The attributable shares for arterial roads are
estimated from the results for the climate based road network classification. The attributable
shares for AusLink and unsealed roads are estimated from the results for all arterial roads.
Table 23: Attributable proportions for each road network classification category D Road rehabilitation
Road network category AusLink
Arterial roads
Unsealed
NTC
template
Climate
Dry
Climate
Medium
Climate
Wet
Proportion of expenditure attributable to
road use and selected road use
parameter
45% to
ESA-km
10-20% to
ESA -km
15-30% to
ESA -km
10-20% to
ESA -km
45% to ESA
45% to PCU
45% to
ESA-km

The current NTC cost allocation template attributes 45% of expenditure based on ESA-km and
considers 55% as non-attributable.
It is important to stress that the results for rehabilitation expenditure have been used to derive
conclusions about the most appropriate road network classification but should not be viewed as
conclusive evidence for changing current practice.


Austroads 2011
- 36 -

5 CONCLUSION
5.1 Findings
The overall objective of this project was to determine the most appropriate road network
classification for heavy vehicle cost allocation and pricing. This project differs from previous
investigations in that it includes:
analysis of the relationship between road use and expenditure without considering road
condition; and
analysis of data on expenditure and road use for expenditure categories B2 and D that
covers the whole arterial road network for four States (and Victorian local roads) instead of
analysing only a sample of road sections.
classifications, as far as possible, from actual nationwide road use and expenditure data, which
had not previously been attempted in Australia.
Table 24 provides an overview of the road network classifications that give the best differentiation
for each expenditure category.
Table 24: Road Network Classification by expenditure category
Expenditure category
Primary road Network Classification that gives
the best differentiation
Secondary road Network Classification that
gives the best differentiation
B2 - Periodic surface maintenance
Climate zones
AusLink roads
Unsealed
Arterial/local roads
D - Road Rehabilitation
Climate zones
AusLink roads
Unsealed roads
Arterial/local roads

The resulting road network classification is illustrated in Figure 11.

Austroads 2011
- 37 -

Figure 11: Road network classification findings
Table 25 and Table 26 provide a summary of the road use parameters and estimated attributable
shares for each road type included in the primary road network classification. The numbers are
derived from the conclusions in sections 3 and 4.
Table 25: Expenditure category B2
Unsealed Roads 80-90% 10-20%

Table 26: Expenditure category D
Unsealed Roads 45% 45% 10%

Dry climate
Med climate
Wet climate
Unsealed
AusLink network
Arterial
Local
Arterial
Local
Arterial
Local
Primary Road Network
Classification
Secondary Road Network
Classification

Austroads 2011
- 38 -
5.2 Next steps
Overall, the statistical analysis has demonstrated that, on the basis of existing data from four
states, the relationship between road use and expenditure does not provide a strong basis for
determining the most appropriate road network classification.
There are a number of key data limitations that constrain the usefulness of results:
Expenditure data is only available for up to 10 years this implies that a full pavement life
cycle is not captured and there is a high number of roads sections with zero expenditure;
Heavy vehicle road use data is not routinely collected for different vehicle classes
consequently AADT and the percentage of heavy vehicles had to be used to derive PCU,
AGM and ESA which leads to high collinearity between road use parameters;
Only a small number of road network classifications could be tested for all states;
The relationship between road use and expenditure is partially influenced by funding
availability and strategies, which may obscure the relationship between road use and road
wear;
There is limited data available on the age of pavements or the timing of the previous periodic
maintenance or rehabilitation treatments.
Detailed data on expenditure and road use on local roads was not available to compare the results
for arterial roads to local roads.
The data could be improved by:
Better linking of road inventory, road use, and road expenditure datasets by state road
authorities using consistent referencing systems;
Obtaining more detailed expenditure data covering a greater number of years;
Recording pavement type and pavement age for all road segments; and
Recording detailed traffic data to calculate AGM and ESA for all road segments.
Even if the relevant data was collected on a consistent basis, the relationship between road use
and expenditure will still be strongly influenced by a range of external factors (differences in
budgets, strategies, funding guidelines, funding availability etc).
It is therefore considered preferable to view the results and findings as a basis for further
investigation rather than firm recommendations to change current cost allocation practices.
Overall, the benefits and costs of different ways forward need to be considered. The benefits are
generally related to greater certainty of results which would lead to a change in heavy vehicle
charges and therefore translate in efficiency gains. The costs mainly include further research or
resources required for data collection.
There are two possible ways forward for which the benefits may outweigh the costs. Firstly,
considering the approach to cost allocation in other countries and the difficulties and limitations of
the analysis presented in this report, a theoretical approach to classifying the road network based
on engineering principles may be a more practical way to determine appropriate cost functions for
different road network classifications. Secondly, collection of additional data could enhance both

Austroads 2011
- 39 -
the engineering based analysis as well as econometric analysis. Data on road samples have been
collected previously (between the early 1980s and late 1990s). The collection process ceased due
to a lack of ongoing resource commitment. As a result, a second round of data sample collection
would only be successful if it was:
Based on a long-term funding and resourcing commitment;
Independent from funding decisions to obtain an unbiased sample; and
Comprehensive in terms of the data collected (including heavy vehicle classes, different
types of expenditure, pavement and surface type).

Austroads 2011
- 40 -
APPENDIX A VICTORIAN ARTERIAL ROADS
The Victorian arterial roads dataset is based on arterial road use and expenditure data provided by
VicRoads. The data provided by VicRoads on arterial road use and expenditure includes:
VicRoads Arterial Road Inventory (dated September 2006); and
Maintenance expenditure data for the years 1999-2000 to 2006-2007.

The Arterial Road Inventory
The VicRoads Arterial Road Inventory includes all Victorian arterials and provides information on:
Road name;
Road number;
Region;
Local Government Area (LGA);
Chainage;
Road length;
Average Seal Width;
Annual average daily traffic volumes (AADT);
Commercial vehicles as a percentage of AADT;
Various ratings of the road condition (roughness, cracking, etc.);
Number of lanes and type of road (e.g. freeway); and
Other characteristics such as rainfall, roadside, terrain and quality of drainage and material.
In the inventory, roads are broken down into separate sections and all information is available by
road section. Section lengths differ between 100m and 188km. No specific collection date was
provided for AADT volumes. The road sections in the inventory determine the smallest
disaggregation of road expenditure data that is relevant for the analysis. Even if expenditure data
could be broken down further, the fact that AADT and heavy vehicle traffic volumes are only
available for the road sections specified in the inventory implies that this is the smallest, sensible
level of disaggregation for the analysis.

Austroads 2011
- 41 -
The maintenance expenditure data
The VicRoads maintenance expenditure data includes all maintenance activities undertaken on
Victorian arterial roads in a given financial year. The data includes information on:
Region;
Local Government Area (LGA) (for the 2002-03 data);
Road Classification (Arterial, National Highways/AusLink, Special Activities);
Road number and section;
Funding source;
Work element;
Work type;
Work description;
Chainage work refers to;
Allocated and estimated cost; and
Cost per square metre of the treatment.
The allocated expenditure is the budget allocation made at the start of the year, based on total
budget to work with. The estimated expenditure is the expected outcome as variations take place
during the year and totals are adjusted, often both are similar but the initial allocation has
sometimes not been finalised. In order to reflect actual expenditure, the estimated expenditure was
used.
The work element categories vary between years, for example, in 2006-07 work elements include
the categories bridges, pavement, roadside and special activities. In 2005-06 work elements also
include a category called national highway maintenance. For the analysis of rehabilitation and
periodic maintenance, the entries related to the work element pavement were used as well as also
some of the pavement rehabilitation and resealing works on national highways.
Expenditure categories covered by analysis
Work descriptions in the maintenance database also vary among the different years. Table 27
shows all the different work type descriptions that are used in the expenditure databases in
different years and indicates those that were assumed to be part of the periodic pavement
maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure categories for the analysis in this project.

Austroads 2011
- 42 -
Table 27: Overview of work types included in expenditure categories
Work Type Included in expenditure category:
Transport Safety Services
Traffic Signal Maintenance
T.S.S. Costs
Street Lighting
Snow Clearing
Routine Roadside Maintenance (Nat)
Routine Roadside Maintenance
Routine Pavement Maintenance (Nat)
Routine Pavement Maintenance
Routine Maintenance (Structures)
Routine Maintenance
Routine Bridge Maintenance (Nat)
Routine Bridge Maintenance
Roadside Treatments (Rehabilitation)
Roadside Treatments (Periodic)
Roadside Treatments
Roadside Treatment (Nat)
Roadside Treatment
Roadside & Median Maintenance
Rehabilitation (Structures)
Rehabilitation Rehabilitation
Periodic Pavement Maintenance (Nat) Periodic Pavement Maintenance
Periodic Pavement Maintenance Periodic Pavement Maintenance
Periodic Maintenance (Structures)
Periodic Maintenance Periodic Pavement Maintenance
Periodic Bridge Maintenance (Nat)
Periodic Bridge Maintenance
Pavement Rehabilitation (Nat) Rehabilitation
Pavement Rehabilitation Rehabilitation
Murray River Bridges & Punts
Local Roads Assistance grants
Linemarking
Leachate Plant (Nat)
City Link Tollway
Bridge Rehabilitation (Nat)
Bridge Rehabilitation


Austroads 2011
- 43 -
Combining inventory and expenditure information
In order to create a database that contains all relevant information, the maintenance expenditure
entries were matched up with the corresponding road sections of the road inventory.
Firstly, periodic pavement maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure was matched to the relevant
road sections from the arterial inventory. Each entry can be identified by the combination of its
road number, road name and section number. Periodic pavement maintenance and rehabilitation
expenditure has been collated for 1,347 separate road sections for each of the 8 years covered by
the data. Figure 12 provides an illustration of the database showing rehabilitation expenditure by
year.

Figure 12: Illustration of database showing rehabilitation expenditure p.a. ($'000) by year
In a second step, the average annual expenditure data was then included in a summary sheet that
contained the relevant road characteristics. The summary sheet contains the following information:
Road ID (Combination of road name, Road number and section id);
Road name;
Road number;
Section ID;
LGA;
Municipal Group number;

Austroads 2011
- 44 -
Roadside;
Length in km;
Number of lanes two-ways;
Lane-kilometres;
AADT per lane;
percentage of heavy vehicles;
Passenger Car Equivalent Unit (PCU) per lane;
Average Gross Mass kilometres (AGM) per lane;
Equivalent Standard Axle (ESA)per lane;
Average annual expenditure on periodic pavement maintenance (Periodic maintenance
expenditure); and
Average annual expenditure on rehabilitation (Rehab expenditure).
The variables indicated in italics were derived as part of Maunsells analysis. The municipal group
number was based on the classifications of LGAs by the Victorian Grants Commission.
The final database used for analysis contained information on AADT, number of lanes and the
proportion of heavy vehicles. This information was used to derive road use parameters. Estimates
of PCU, AGM and ESA per lane per day were calculated from AADT as discussed in Section 2.4.3
Limitations
There are a number of reasons why some road expenditure observations are not captured in the
database or are incomplete. There is a small mismatch of road numbers and road names that
applies to approximately 3% of all expenditure entries across all years (1,850 entries in total). In
addition, the road names recorded against some expenditure entries were not in the road
inventory. Table 28 provides an overview of the number of entries that cannot be matched to any
road in the road inventory because neither the road name nor road number is in the inventory. If all
of these entries were included in the database, the number of road sections would increase.
Table 28: Overview of number of unmatched entries
Year Total number of entries
Number entries applying to roads that are not
in the inventory
1999-2000 4,371 62
2000-2001 5,397 52
2001-2002 5,832 61
2002-2003 6,624 59
2003-2004 5,952 26
2004-2005 5,909 14
2005-2006 5,769 15
2006-2007 4,147 17

While it is possible to resolve the limitations of the database, it was decided that it is was not cost-
effective to ensure that 100 per cent of expenditure is matched at this point if the database was still
capturing the majority of total expenditure. Table 29 and Table 30 provide an overview of the total
rehabilitation and periodic pavement maintenance expenditure for each year as well as the

Austroads 2011
- 45 -
proportions of matched and unmatched expenditure. It can be seen from the tables that for
rehabilitation, the database currently captures at least 97% of expenditure in each year. For
periodic pavement maintenance the proportion is slightly lower with a minimum of 94% except for
1999-00 when it is 87%. In both cases it was established that the overall proportion of matched
expenditure was sufficient to proceed with the analysis.
Table 29: Total rehabilitation expenditure (in $000) and proportion of expenditure captured by the database
Rehabilitation expenditure $000
1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07
Matched $69,250 $62,291 $120,765 $70,943 $121,352 $121,463 $111,185 $73,966
Unmatched $2,724 $1,861 $2,460 $2,086 $3,444 $2,333 $2,909 $2,385
Total $71,974 $64,152 $123,225 $73,030 $124,796 $123,796 $114,095 $76,351
% of expenditure
captured by
database
96% 97% 98% 97% 97% 98% 97% 97%

Table 30: Total periodic pavement maintenance expenditure (in $000) and proportion of expenditure captured by the database
Periodic Pavement Maintenance expenditure $000
1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07
Matched $41,137 $49,292 $76,880 $49,845 $92,165 $84,684 $129,347 $144,690
Unmatched $6,160 $2,618 $2,738 $3,027 $3,012 $3,117 $4,186 $3,866
Total $47,297 $51,910 $79,619 $52,872 $95,177 $87,801 $133,533 $148,556
% of expenditure
captured by
database
87% 95% 97% 94% 97% 96% 97% 97%

Figure 13 shows the total rehabilitation and maintenance expenditure by year. The graph therefore
plots the total expenditure provided in Table 29 and Table 30. It shows that periodic pavement
maintenance expenditure was consistently lower than rehabilitation expenditure until 2005-06.
From then on periodic pavement maintenance expenditure was higher than rehabilitation
expenditure. A possible reason for a shift in the relativities of rehabilitation and periodic pavement
maintenance expenditure could be the drought.

Austroads 2011
- 46 -
Total expenditure by year
$0
$20,000
$40,000
$60,000
$80,000
$100,000
$120,000
$140,000
$160,000
1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07
Year
T
o
t
a
l

e
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

$
0
0
0
Rehabilitation Periodic Pavement Maintenance

Figure 13: Total rehabilitation and periodic maintenance expenditure by year
In addition to the mismatch in road names and numbers and missing roads from the inventory
database, some roads had no AADT values and percentages of heavy vehicles. In these cases,
AADT and the per cent heavy vehicles was added manually considering AADT volumes and heavy
vehicle proportions on other sections of the road and the location of the road. Given the limitations
discussed above, the database consists of 1,347 road sections which contain complete
information.


Austroads 2011
- 47 -
APPENDIX B NSW ARTERIAL ROAD DATA
The NSW arterial roads dataset is based on arterial road use and maintenance expenditure data
provided by the Road and Traffic Authority (RTA). The data was provided in two separate datasets:
RTA Arterial Road Inventory (Dated May 2008); and
Maintenance Expenditure data for year 1997/1998 to 2006/2007.
The Arterial Road Inventory
The RTA road network database disaggregates the NSW arterial network into segments which
provide information on:
Road Number
Road Name
Segment Length
Local Government Area (LGA)
Pavement Category Description
Annual average daily traffic volumes AADT
Annual Growth Rate
Proportion of Heavy Vehicles
Number of through Lanes
Segment Rehabilitation Year
Segment Resurface Year
Terrain
Surface Type
Pavement Type
The road network is further disaggregated into links. Segments can cover a single link, part of a
single link or several links with similar attributes.
The Maintenance Expenditure Data
The RTA maintenance expenditure data included details for all maintenance work undertaken on
NSW arterial roads between 1998 and 2007. This included information on:
Project Number;
Project Description;
Road Number;
Expenditure Code;
Start Link;
End Link; and
Maintenance Expenditure for each year.

Austroads 2011
- 48 -
Table 31: Expenditure categories covered by analysis
Expenditure Code Work Type Included in expenditure category
22101 Routine pavement
22102 Pavement Resurfacing B2 Periodic Maintenance
22103 Pavement Rehabilitation D Rehabilitation
22104 Heavy patching D Rehabilitation
22105 Pavement Project services
22106 Initial Sealing
22107 Formation Widening & Shoulder Sealing D Rehabilitation
22108 Reconstruction D Rehabilitation

Figure 14 shows the expenditure included in the analysis of rehabilitation and periodic
maintenance for each year between 1998 and 2007.

Figure 14: NSW Total Annual Periodic Maintenance and Rehabilitation Expenditure

As most expenditure entries covered more than one link, expenditure for each work entry was
allocated across all links between the start link and end link on the basis of the relative lane
kilometres of each link.
In order to match maintenance expenditure with road inventory data the road inventory data had to
be allocated according to road links. However, road inventory data such as AADT, number of
lanes and proportion of heavy vehicles was recorded in segments. The relationship between
segments and links is illustrated in Figure 15. For example, link 30 in Figure 15 below covers
segment 1 and 2 which may have different attributes. As a result, links had to be allocated the
attributes of one of the segments or a combination of both.

Austroads 2011
- 49 -

Figure 15: Relationship between road links and segments
Limitations
Some expenditure entries could not be allocated as the road and link numbers in the maintenance
expenditure data did not correspond to any road links in the road inventory dataset. Table 32
shows the proportion of expenditure allocated to the road inventory links.
Table 32: Total expenditure Allocated 1998-2007
Expenditure Type Total expenditure
Expenditure
Allocated to Links
Proportion Allocated
B2 Periodic Maintenance $660,957 $642,908 97%
D Rehabilitation $1,648,610 $1,615,860 98%

Additionally, a number of assumptions had to be made:
For work carried out on multiple links, the data provided contained no details as to how much
expenditure is directly attributed to each one of those links. For example, if $15,000 were
spent on link 20 to link 30, it is not known what proportion of expenditure was spent on each
of the links. As a result, it has been assumed that costs are spread evenly over the links
according to the relative lane kilometres.
One link number can be combined with several different carriageway codes to represent
off/on ramps, frontage roads, etc. In absence of any more detailed information, we have
assumed that if work has been carried out on a given link then the work was done on the
main carriageway.
Network data such as: AADT, number of lanes, heavy vehicle %,
surface type, pavement type; recorded for each segment
1 2 3 4 5 6
Expenditure data allocated across link numbers
10 20 30 40 5

60 70 80
Segment

Links

Austroads 2011
- 50 -
APPENDIX C QUEENSLAND ARTERIAL ROAD
DATA
The Queensland arterial road dataset was derived from several sources including:
Queensland Main Roads road inventory data
Queensland Main Roads yearly expenditure breakdown
Queensland Main Roads maintenance jobs database

The arterial road inventory
Queensland Main Roads provided Maunsell with a road inventory dataset consisting of the
following information:
Road Name
Road Section ID
District ID
Start Distance
End Distance
LGA
Carriageway Code
Seal
Surface Type
Pavement Type
AADT
Heavy Vehicle Percentage
Rural/Urban
Road Section Length
The road inventory dataset is disaggregated into 1km segments. Data on the number of lanes for
each road was provided in a different format and was therefore added to the above dataset by
joining the two sets of data using Start Distance, End Distance and Carriageway Code.

Austroads 2011
- 51 -
Queensland maintenance work data
Maintenance work data was provided separately from expenditure data and included the following
job details:
J ob Number
District ID
Road Section ID
Start Distance
End Distance
Start Date
Completion Date
J ob Type
Construction Method
Description
Locality Description
J ob Category
Queensland expenditure data
Maintenance expenditure data was provided directly from the financial management system. This
data covered the financial years 1996/1997 to 2005/2006. The information relevant to Maunsells
analysis included:
J ob number
Annual expenditure
Work Type
The entries relating to maintenance expenditure were identified by their work type number, the
details of each work type were provided in Queensland Main Roads PROJ MAN user guide.
Table 33: Relevant work types and corresponding expenditure categories
Work Type Included in expenditure category
60 B1 Routine Maintenance
40 D Rehabilitation
41 D Rehabilitation
42 D Rehabilitation
48 D Rehabilitation
55 D Rehabilitation
50 B2 Periodic Maintenance


Austroads 2011
- 52 -

In order to allocate expenditure to the road inventory, it was first matched with maintenance work
data by matching the job numbers in both datasets. In the case of a job being spread over several
separate sections of road the costs were assigned according to the relative length (lane-
kilometres) each section.
The next step involved allocating the new maintenance expenditure dataset consisting of 5,229
entries over the Queensland road inventory made up of 30,448 individual links. As the (newly
created) maintenance expenditure dataset contained the location of each maintenance job down to
the nearest 10 metres, the expenditure was allocated to specific road inventory sections. In the
case of maintenance jobs covering several road inventory sections, it was allocated according to
relative lane-kilometre length.
Figure 16 below shows the database once the expenditure is matched to the road network.

Figure 16: Queensland database

Austroads 2011
- 53 -
Limitations
From the expenditure information provided, around 85-90% of Periodic Maintenance and
Rehabilitation expenditure was allocate to job details for years 1996/1997 to 2005/2006 this is
partly due to the fact that the maintenance job database only has records for completed jobs, any
jobs in progress are not included until final job completion. As job data and expenditure data is
recorded in separate systems the amount of anomalies in job numbers will be higher than in a
completely integrated system. The amount of Periodic Maintenance and Rehabilitation expenditure
allocated to job data was deemed significant enough to proceed with analysis.
$0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
$50,000
$60,000
$70,000
$80,000
$90,000
1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06
Year
T
o
t
a
l

E
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

$
0
0
0
Periodic Maintenance Rehabilitation

Figure 17: Queensland Total Annual Periodic Maintenance and Rehabilitation Expenditure included in analysis


Austroads 2011
- 54 -
APPENDIX D SOUTH AUSTRALIA ARTERIAL
ROAD DATA
The South Australian road expenditure dataset was assembled from data provided by the
Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (DTEI) consisting of:
Periodic Maintenance and Rehabilitation expenditure for SA arterial roads from the 2001/02
financial year to 2007/08;
SA Arterial Road Inventory data (Dated August 08).
Arterial Road Inventory Data
The road inventory data provided by SA disaggregated the arterial network into 14,336 links with
lengths ranging from 20m to 4.5km. These cover over 13,000km of the South Australian road
network. Each of the road links had the following attributes:
Road Number
Link Start
Link End
Road Width
Pavement Type
Year of last pavement work
Pavement Age
Surface Type
Year of last pavement work
Surface Age
Urban/Rural
AADT
Commercial vehicle percentage of AADT
The South Australian arterial network contains only 48kms of unsealed roads the other 10,170kms
of the states unsealed roads are defined as local roads. The data collection procedures for
unsealed roads is different from that of sealed roads and therefore the data available for the 48kms
of unsealed arterial roads is not compatible to the rest of the arterial network. As these roads make
up less than 1% of the network it was decided the analysis would not be significantly affected by
the absence of this data.

Austroads 2011
- 55 -

The Maintenance Expenditure Data
The Maintenance expenditure data provided all expenditure for Periodic Maintenance and
Rehabilitation for a seven year period and provide the following information for each expenditure
project:
Financial Year
Treatment Type
Road Number
Start Point
End Point
Cost
Figure 18 shows the periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure between 20001/2002 and
2007/2008.
$0
$5,000
$10,000
$15,000
$20,000
$25,000
2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08
Year
T
o
t
a
l

e
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

$
0
0
0
Periodic Pavement Maintenance Rehabilitation

Figure 18: Periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure

Austroads 2011
- 56 -
Combining expenditure data and road inventory data
The process of combining the expenditure and inventory data was relatively more straightforward
for South Australia than the other states due to the consistent database format and completeness
of the records. Each project contains details of the road treated and the start and end of the treated
area. These treatment areas do not directly correspond to the start and end of links and therefore
cost must be proportioned across links depending on the lane km of the link that were treated. The
figure below demonstrates how costs were allocated across the road network.
Only a small number of the projects could not be attributed to the network, this was due to road or
link numbers not matching those in the network database. The proportion of expenditure that is
unallocated is less than 2% of the total project costs.
Table 34: Total number of projects and number of projects not attributable to road inventory
Year Total number of project entries Number of projects not attributable to road inventory.
2001/2002 188 6
2002/2003 194 4
2003/2004 272 3
2004/2005 218 4
2005/2006 228 12
2006/2007 282 2
2007/2008 231 0

Table 35: Proportion of costs allocated
Expenditure type Project Costs Cost Allocated to Links Proportion Allocated
B2 $101,158,000 $99,912,000 98.8%
D $79,231,000 $78,086,000 98.6%

Austroads 2011
- 57 -
APPENDIX E MAP OF CLIMATE CATEGORIES
Figure 19, Figure 20, Figure 21 and Figure 22 show the rainfall patterns in Victoria, South
Australia, Queensland and New South Wales and the corresponding climate categories used in the
statistical analysis.

Figure 19: Rainfall patterns in Victoria
Dry
category
Medium
category

Austroads 2011
- 58 -

Figure 20: Rainfall patterns in South Australia
Dry category
Medium
category

Austroads 2011
- 59 -

Figure 21: Rainfall pattern in Queensland
Medium
category
Dry
category
Wet
category

Austroads 2011
- 60 -

Figure 22: Rainfall pattern in New South Wales

Dry
category
Medium
category
Wet category

Austroads 2011
- 61 -
APPENDIX F VICTORIAN LOCAL ROADS
Data obtained
Expenditure and usage data for local roads in Victoria was obtained from the Victorian Grants
Commission. Data was contained in six separate spreadsheets covering the financial years
2000/01 to 2005/06 inclusive. The level of detail of the data was not completely consistent across
the years and the format of the data was different for every year making analysis somewhat
cumbersome.
Key data for the most recent years included:
1. Length of local roads in each of the following daily traffic volume ranges in each of
Victorias 80 municipalities
6
:
Kerbed local roads
- less than 500 vehicles per day (vpd)
- 500 to less than 1,000 vpd
- 1,000 to less than 5,000 vpd
- at least 5,000 vpd
- total kerbed local roads
Unkerbed roads
- Natural Surface Roads (all traffic volumes)
- less than 100 vpd
- 100 to less than 500 vpd
- 500 to less than 1,000 vpd
- at least 1,000 vpd
- total unkerbed local roads
- total local roads

6
Note that Docklands Authority was included as a separate municipality.

Austroads 2011
- 62 -
2. Length of local roads in each of the following road type categories in each of Victorias 80
municipalities:
Sealed
Formed and surfaced
Natural surface
Total local roads

3. Annual local road expenditure on each of the above four road type categories for each of
Victorias 80 municipalities disaggregated into the following expenditure categories:
Existing assets maintenance (routine maintenance)
Existing assets capital renewal (periodic maintenance and rehabilitation)
Existing assets capital upgrade
New assets capital expansion
Total road expenditure
4. Annual bridge maintenance and capital expansion expenditure;
5. Asset valuation data.
There was no heavy vehicle traffic volume data in any of the spreadsheets.
Anal ysis
The aim of the analysis was to test the extent to which the available local road data enabled
investigation of differences in road use versus cost relationships by road type. Ideally the data
would enable the identification of different relationships between road use and cost for different
types of local roads as well as between local roads and arterial roads.
Analysis was performed on the data from the latest three financial years; 2003/04, 2004/05 and
2005/06 as data from the three earlier years was not usable for the purposes of this project
because it did not include any road use data. A further limitation of the earlier data was that
expenditure data was not sufficiently disaggregated. Annual expenditures were only reported as
totals of recurrent and capital. The recurrent expenditure amount is a total of routine maintenance,
periodic maintenance and rehabilitation precluding the ability to analyse these expenditure
categories separately. In addition to these limitations the 2002/03 dataset was considered suspect
because it contained fewer worksheets than the other years and much of the expenditure data was
identical to the 2003/04 data. However, if necessary, an approximate analysis could be
undertaken using expenditure data from the earlier years combined with road use data from the
more recent years.
Based on the data that was available for the latest three years it was possible to investigate
relationships between vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) and expenditure for the local roads
grouped by municipal group and by average traffic density (defined later).

Austroads 2011
- 63 -
The data on lengths of road in each traffic volume category is subdivided into kerbed and unkerbed
roads but does not distinguish whether roads were sealed or unsealed. On the other hand
expenditure data is subdivided into sealed, unsealed formed and surfaced, and unsealed natural
surface but not by traffic volume category or whether roads were kerbed or unkerbed. The
differences in categorisation of expenditure and traffic volume data are illustrated in Figure 23.

Figure 23: Categorisation of road length by traffic volume versus expenditure for local roads data

The following assumptions were required in order to convert the traffic volume category data into
VKT estimates for sealed and unsealed roads to enable comparison with expenditure:
Natural surface roads were excluded from the analysis because no road use data and only
very limited expenditure data was reported for these roads;
The midpoints of the daily traffic volume ranges were assumed to represent the average
traffic volumes for all roads in the respective traffic volume ranges (e.g. 750 vpd for the
category ranging from 500 to 1,000 vpd);
All kerbed local roads (in all daily traffic volume ranges) were assumed to be sealed;
Unkerbed roads in daily traffic volume ranges over 500 vpd were assumed to be sealed;
Equal proportions of roads in the traffic volume ranges 0 100 vpd and 100 500 vpd in
each LGA were assumed to be unsealed, based on the total unsealed formed and surfaced
road lengths reported in the data.
Total annual VKT estimates for sealed and unsealed formed and surfaced roads were calculated
for each LGA. These were divided by annual capital renewal expenditure totals for each LGA to
determine capital renewal expenditure per VKT. Only relationships between VKT and expenditure
could be calculated. The absence of any heavy vehicle traffic numbers or proportions made it
impossible to calculate estimates of PCU-km, AGM-km or ESA-km and corresponding
relationships with expenditure.
Based on definitions in the Victorian Grants Commission spreadsheets, capital renewal is
understood to include both periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure was not reported
separately for these categories. Routine maintenance expenditure was reported separately and
analysis could also be undertaken on this but it was considered that the primary focus in this phase
of the project was to investigate the suitability of available data and that analysis of periodic
maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure categories would provide the best test of this. Using
capital renewal expenditure for the local roads analysis, the intention was also to compare results
from the local road analysis to the arterial roads analysis. The disadvantage of only having a
combined total for periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure is that it is not possible to
Road length by
traffic volume
Capital renewal
expenditure
Sealed Unkerbed Kerbed Formed and
Surfaced
Natural
Surface

Austroads 2011
- 64 -
investigate separate road use cost relationships for these expenditure categories it is only
possible to test for a relationship between road use (in terms of VKT) and expenditure on these
categories combined and possibly to gain an approximate indication of the proportion of this
expenditure that is attributable to road use.
Separate capital renewal expenditure per VKT ratios were calculated for sealed and unsealed
roads.
Road network classification by municipal groups
The Victorian Grants Commission divides LGAs into six municipal groups as follows:
1) Metro Minimum Grant (inner metropolitan e.g. Bayside, Stonnington, Moonee Valley)
2) Metro Other (outer metropolitan, e.g. Frankston, Banyule, Hobsons Bay)
3) Interface (Metropolitan fringe, e.g. Casey, Whittlesea, Melton, Wyndham)
4) Regional centres (e.g. Greater Geelong, Greater Bendigo)
5) Large Rural (e.g. Bass Coast, Mitchell, Glenelg)
6) Small Rural (e.g. Alpine, Buloke, Hepburn)
Average capital renewal expenditure per VKT estimates were calculated for all roads within each of
these groups. These are unweighted averages. They are the total of the individual average
expenditure per VKT estimates for the LGAs in each municipal group divided by the number of
LGAs in the group for which there was an individual estimate.
The results of this analysis are shown in Table 36.
Table 36: Average capital renewal expenditure per VKT for Municipal Groups
Average expenditure per VKT ($/000VKT)
Municipal group
number
2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 3 year average
Approximate
sample size
Sealed roads
1 6.13 10.18 16.07 10.80 3
2 7.41 7.44 8.68 7.84 8
3 8.11 6.27 21.34 11.91 8
4 12.57 11.35 11.45 11.79 7
5 15.53 18.40 19.06 17.66 20
6 17.84 18.37 26.55 20.92 18
Formed and surfaced unsealed roads
1 0.00 0.00 28.86 9.62 1
2 0.00 58.85 12.70 23.85 1
3 11.86 18.91 32.17 20.98 2
4 25.18 20.85 15.05 20.36 5
5 14.49 16.56 13.32 14.79 13
6 11.52 16.66 14.68 14.28 15


Austroads 2011
- 65 -
The approximate sample size indicates the number of LGAs in the relevant municipal group that
contained valid statistics that could be included in the relevant average expenditure per VKT
estimate. The sample size is an approximation because it varied slightly from year to year. The
sample sizes shown are for the 2005/2006 year. Due to the small sample sizes, statistically robust
conclusions are cannot be drawn and qualitative findings are discussed in the following
paragraphs.
The results in Table 36 show a general trend of increasing expenditure per VKT from municipal
group 1 to group 6 for sealed roads. In the case of unsealed roads the ratio is higher for municipal
groups 3 and 4 than groups 5 and 6. There were too few unsealed roads in municipal groups 1
and 2 for their unsealed roads ratios to be meaningful.
The increasing trend in the ratio for sealed roads across the municipal groups may simply reflect
the fact that roads in the lower numbered groups carry higher traffic volumes and hence unit costs
per VKT are lower due to there being a proportion of fixed (non attributable) costs. Theoretically
these ratios would be similar for all municipal groups if all costs were use-related and were a
function of VKT (rather than other parameters such as ESA-km). As VKT consists of traffic
volumes and road length, differences in the ratios could be driven by differences in LGA total road
network lengths.
The possibility should also be considered that expenditure is determined more by the amount of
funding received from the Victorian Grants Commission rather than by traffic levels or that the
analysis only reflects a relationship because the assumption of a relationship is the basis on which
the funding amounts are determined in the first place. Further consideration of this found that
Victorian Grants Commission untied grants are only about $100 million per annum and total local
road expenditure is approximately $500 million, which tends to mitigate this concern.
The unsealed road results indicate higher capital renewal expenditure per VKT for unsealed roads
on the fringe of Melbourne and in regional centres. This may be because these LGAs have
relatively fewer unsealed roads and users have higher service level expectations both of which
would cause higher re-gravelling or rehabilitation costs.
Road network classification by traffic density
An alternative approach is to group LGAs in terms of average traffic density. Average traffic
density in each LGA is calculated as the total VKT per day divided by the total road network length
so, in effect, it represents a distance weighted average daily traffic volume for all roads in the LGA.
LGAs were then sorted in order of increasing average traffic density and divided into the following
groups:
0 99
100 199
200 299
300 499
500 999
1000 +

Austroads 2011
- 66 -
Average capital renewal expenditure per VKT estimates were calculated for roads in all LGAs in
each of these groups. These are unweighted averages. They are the total of the individual
average expenditure per VKT estimates for the LGAs in each average traffic density group divided
by the number of LGAs in the group for which there was an individual estimate. The results of this
analysis are shown in Table 37. .
Table 37: Average capital renewal expenditure per VKT for average traffic density groups
Average expenditure per VKT ($/000VKT)
LGAs grouped by
average traffic density
2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 3 year average
Approximate
sample size
Sealed roads
0 - 99 30.11 26.39 35.81 30.77 7
100 - 199 18.73 19.56 23.88 20.72 17
200 - 299 10.27 13.38 13.85 12.50 13
300 - 499 7.15 10.64 15.25 11.01 4
500 - 999 8.49 9.56 10.64 9.57 9
1000 + 8.88 7.92 16.73 11.18 14
Formed and surfaced unsealed roads
0 - 99 16.78 23.77 19.41 19.99 7
100 - 199 10.01 11.72 8.57 10.10 11
200 - 299 15.05 16.70 15.98 15.91 11
300 - 499 6.80 14.07 9.47 10.11 2
500 - 999 6.50 17.35 27.38 17.08 5
1000 + 41.32 60.50 12.70 38.17 1

For sealed roads the results in Table 37 show a general trend of decreasing capital renewal
expenditure per VKT from roads in the lowest traffic density LGAs to those in the highest traffic
density LGAs. This trend appears slightly stronger than the trend based on municipal groups
shown in Table 36 which indicates that this grouping of LGAs may be more effective in maximising
differences which is one of the objectives of this project.
In the case of unsealed roads there is no obvious pattern to the relationship between average
capital renewal expenditure per VKT when LGAs are grouped by average traffic density.
Figure 24 and Figure 25 show scatter plots of LGA traffic density versus LGA capital renewal
expenditure for sealed and unsealed roads. Figure 24 suggests that there might be a weak
relationship between traffic density and capital renewal expenditure. Clearly, one observation is an
outlier (Wyndham City Council). Figure 25 suggests that there are lots of observations with zero
expenditure which are likely to distort the relationship between traffic density and capital renewal
expenditure.

Austroads 2011
- 67 -
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000
Traffic density (Vehicles per day)
C
a
p
i
t
a
l

r
e
n
e
w
a
l

e
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

p
e
r

k
m

p
e
r

d
a
y

Figure 24: Scatter plot of LGA traffic density versus LGA capital renewal expenditure for sealed roads

0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Traffic density (vehicles per day)
C
a
p
i
t
a
l

r
e
n
e
w
a
l

e
x
p
e
n
d
i
t
u
r
e

p
e
r

k
m

p
e
r

d
a
y

Figure 25: Scatter plot of LGA traffic density versus LGA capital renewal expenditure for unsealed roads
As the sample sizes in each traffic density group are not large enough to test for differences in the
impact of traffic density on expenditure between groups, only the overall impact of LGA traffic
density versus LGA expenditure for all LGAs could be tested. The following regression was used:
Capital renewal expenditure per km per day (in 2005/06) =
0
+
1
* Traffic density (in
2005/06)
The regression was applied to both unsealed and sealed roads. Results are shown in Table 38
and Table 39.

Austroads 2011
- 68 -
Table 38: Results for regression of traffic density on capital renewal expenditure for sealed roads
Model
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta B Std. Error
1 (Constant) 225.635 310.683 .726 .470
Sealed traffic density 1.037 .282 .386 3.673 .000

The R square of the regression for sealed roads was 0.149 implying that variations in capital
renewal expenditure can only be attributed to variations in traffic density to a small extent. This
corresponds well with the R square values obtained for regressing periodic maintenance and
rehabilitation expenditure on road use for arterial roads as capital renewal expenditure for local
roads includes both periodic maintenance and rehabilitation expenditure. The regression results
show that the coefficient for traffic density is significant at the 95% confidence level.
Table 39: Results for regression of traffic density on capital renewal expenditure for unsealed roads
Model
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta B Std. Error
1 (Constant) 28.015 49.241 .569 .571
Unsealed traffic density .631 .306 .246 2.061 .043

The regression for unsealed roads has an R square of 0.060. This implies that there is a weak
relationship between traffic density and capital renewal expenditure for unsealed local roads. The
coefficient is significant at the 95% confidence level.
It would have been preferable to calculate average expenditure per VKT ratios for local roads in
each of the daily traffic volume ranges reported in the Victorian Grants Commission data.
However, while it would have been possible to calculate the total length of local roads in each of
the daily traffic volume ranges across all of Victorias municipalities and multiply this by the
midpoint of the respective daily traffic volume ranges to obtain total VKT for each range,
corresponding disaggregated expenditure data was not reported for these groups of roads. LGA
expenditure is only reported as totals for all sealed and unsealed roads.
VKT estimates are only approximate because:
Councils are only required to conduct traffic counts on a sample of their road network
estimates are made for other roads
Estimates are based on the midpoints of the daily traffic volume ranges multiplied by the total
road lengths in the respective traffic volume ranges ( x 365 days) this may give a different
estimate than calculating the traffic volume times road length separately for each road

Austroads 2011
- 69 -
Other data issues that may have affected the robustness of the analysis include:
Some rural LGAs show a considerable length of unsealed roads but no unsealed road
expenditure. It is possible that unsealed road expenditure has been included in the sealed
road expenditure figures in such cases (perhaps due to limitations in the LGAs expenditure
reporting systems).
There are variations of up to 3% in the reported lengths of local road network in many LGAs
from one year to the next (both up and down) suggesting some uncertainty even in this data.
Due to the lack of heavy vehicle traffic volume data and greater disaggregation of road expenditure
(by NTC category, road type, traffic volume, etc) there is little if any relevant analysis that can be
done to compare the Victorian local roads results with the arterial road results.


Austroads 2011
- 70 -

APPENDIX G AVERAGE EXPENDITURE
Table 40 and Table 41 show the average expenditure (per lane kilometre) per road segment for
three road use categories. The road use categories are not consistent across States as
Queensland and New South Wales had more road segments with high road use. The results show
that for all States, expenditure categories and road use parameter, the average expenditure per
road segment consistently increases with road use.

Austroads 2011
- 71 -

Table 40: Periodic maintenance expenditure - Average expenditure per road segment
Queensland
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<200,000 $4,453 <300,000 $4,598 <500,000 $4,143 <80,000 $4,992
200000 - 500,000 $7,538 300,000 - 1,000,000 $7,484 500,000 - 1,500,000 $7,617 80,000 - 250,000 $7,795
>500000 $12,625 >1,000,000 $13,739 >1,500,000 $13,179 >250,000 $13,142
Victoria
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<150,000 $932 <250,000 $959 <500,000 $963 <40,000 $1,033
150,000 - 1,500,000 $2,355 250,000 - 1,500,000 $2,255 500,000 - 2,500,000 $2,206 40,000 - 120,000 $2,670
>1,500,000 $4,722 >1,500,000 $4,662 >2,500,000 $4,624 >120,000 $4,438
New South Wales
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<300,000 $1,134 <500,000 $1,208 <1,000,000 $1,134 <80,000 $1,299
300,000 - 1,000,000 $1,999 500,000 - 1,500,000 $2,247 1,000,000 - 3,000,000 $2,275 80,000 - 200,000 $2,655
>1,000,000 $3,494 >1,500,000 $3,575 >3,000,000 $3,417 >200,000 $3,011
South Australia
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<100,000 $1,811 <150,000 $1,695 <400,000 $1,742 <30,000 $1,811
100,000 - 400,000 $1,887 150,000 - 500,000 $2,016 400,000 - 1,500,000 $2,136 30,000 - 100,000 $2,127
>400,000 $2,662 >500,000 $2,661 >1,500,000 $2,661 >100,000 $2,598


Austroads 2011
- 72 -
Table 41: Rehabilitation - Average Annual Exp per Lane km
Queensland
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<200,000 $972 <150,000 $973 <300,000 $1,063 <80,000 $1,145
200000 - 500,000 $1,256 150,000 - 350,000 $1,287 300,000 - 1,000,000 $1,272 80,000 - 250,000 $1,651
>500000 $2,082 >350,000 $2,077 >1,000,000 $2,295 >250,000 $2,178
Victoria
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<200,000 $2,047 <250,000 $ 2,028 <500,000 $2,010 <40,000 $1,989
200,000 - 1,500,000 $2,523 250,000 - 1,500,000 $2,442 500,000 - 2,500,000 $2,308 40,000 - 120,000 $2,343
>1,500000 $2,684 >1,500,000 $2,739 >2,500,000 $2,846 >120,000 $2,906
New South Wales
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<600,000 $2,766 <1,000,000 $2,981 <2,000,000 $2,840 <100,000 $2,650
600,000 - 2,000,000 $4,219 1,000,000 - 2,500,000 $3,954 2,000,000 - 4,000,000 $3,764 100,000 - 250,000 $4,600
>2,000,000 $7,025 >2,500,000 $7,495 >4,000,000 $6,915 >250,000 $6,150
South Australia
Annual traffic
Average
Expenditure
Annual PCU
Average
Expenditure
Annual AGM
Average
Expenditure
Annual ESA
Average
Expenditure
<1,500,000 $5,381 <1,500,000 $5,277 <2,500,000 $5,341 <100,000 $6,018
1,500,000 - 2,500,000 $8,226 1,500,000 - 2,800,000 $7,860 2,500,000 - 4,000,000 $7,739 100,000 - 200,000 $7,497
>2,500,000 $8,773 >2,800,000 $9,066 >4,000,000 $8,874 >200,000 $8,858


Austroads 2011
- 73 -
APPENDIX H PROPORTIONS OF
NETWORK/ROAD USE IN EACH ROAD NETWORK
CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY
Table 42 to Table 45 provides the lane-km and VKT for each road network category for all four
States. The total lane-km and VKT for each road network classification are not always identical as
some roads are not recorded in all categories. For example, the road pavement type may not the
recorded.
Table 42: New South Wales - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification category
Road Network
Classification
Category
Proportion of
total-lane km in
each category
Proportion of VKT
in each category
Climate
Dry 46% 11%
Medium 27% 23%
Wet 27% 66%
Urban/Rural

LGA_Urban 40% 83%
LGA_Rural 60% 17%
Terrain
Urban 19% 53%
Rolling 26% 20%
Hilly 9% 10%
Flat 46% 18%
Pavement Type
Concrete 13% 27%
Non-Concrete 87% 73%
AADT Groups
Low 39% 3%
Med 41% 30%
High 20% 67%


Austroads 2011
- 74 -
Table 43: Queensland - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification category
Road Network
Classification
Category
Proportion of
total-lane km
in each
category
Proportion of
VKT in each
category
Climate
Dry 25% 3%
Medium 49% 41%
Wet 26% 57%
LGA Group
1 Urban 2% 10%
2 1% 3%
3 10% 39%
4 8% 14%
5 58% 32%
6 - Rural 21% 2%
Urban/Rural
Urban 7% 39%
Rural 93% 61%
Seal
Sealed 89% 100%
Unsealed 11% 0%
AADT Groups
Low 65% 10%
Med 27% 43%
High 8% 47%

Table 44: South Australia - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification category
Road Network
Classification
Category
Proportion of
total-lane km
in each
category
Proportion of
VKT in each
category
Climate
Dry 61% 22%
Medium 39% 78%
Urban/ Rural
Urban 12% 61%
Rural 88% 39%
LGA Group
1 13% 61%
2 70% 35%
3 16% 3%
AADT Groups
Low 65% 13%
Med 26% 36%
High 8% 51%


Austroads 2011
- 75 -
Table 45: Victoria - Proportions of network/road use in each road network classification category
Road Network
Classification
Category
Proportion of
total-lane km in
each category
Proportion of VKT
in each category
Climate
Dry 30% 12%
Medium 70% 88%
Road Side
Grassland 59% 40%
Treed 28% 15%
Urban 14% 45%
LGA Groups
1 Urban 6% 20%
2 6% 21%
3 9% 21%
4 11% 14%
5 39% 17%
6 - Rural 29% 7%
AADT Group
Low 43% 4%
Med 36% 25%
High 21% 71%


Austroads 2011
- 76 -

REFERENCES
Establishment of a New Pavement Maintenance Database Stage 1 Analysis (October 2008
draft), Project AS1337 prepared for Austroads / National Transport Commission
Improving Cost Allocation Rules by Road Type AS1335 Hold Point Report (November 2007),
Project AS1335 prepared for Austroads / National Transport Commission
Supplementary Submission Classification of the Road Network for Cost Allocation Purposes
(September 2006), ISBN 1 921168 47 1, published by National Transport Commission,
Melbourne, Australia
Network and Asset Planning Asset Management Guidelines (J une 2008), VicRoads internal
document
Linking Victoria Victorias Rural Arterial Road Network Strategy (1995), VicRoads
VicRoads Road Management Plan (October 2004), VicRoads.
Cost Allocation Rules by Road Type_WA_v2 (J anuary 2009), file prepared by Main Roads
Western Australia for Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd.
Cost Allocation Rules by Road Type_WA_v3 (J anuary 2009), file prepared by Main Roads
Western Australia for Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd.
MABCD Standards_New (J anuary 2009), Main Roads Western Australia internal document.
Element Management Plan (Part 1 of 2) Surfacing Treatments Element No: 17 (December 2008),
Department of Main Roads Queensland internal document.
Element Performance Plan (Part 2 of 2) Pavement Rehabilitation Element No: 18 (December
2008), Department of Main Roads Queensland internal document.
Element Management Plan (Part 1 of 2) Unsealed Roads Resheeting Element No: 16 (December
2008), Department of Main Roads Queensland internal document.
Changed - PE Rules 2008_2009 Rules, Department of Main Roads Queensland internal
document.
Categories, Department of Main Roads Queensland internal document.
DIER TAS PMS (J anuary 2009), file prepared by Department of Infrastructure, Energy and
Resources Tasmania for Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd.
Strategic Asset Management Plan (J uly 2005), Department of Infrastructure, Energy and
Resources Tasmania internal document.
Road Asset Management Plan (September 2007), Department of Infrastructure, Energy and
Resources Tasmania internal document.
Policy Number: PN150 Subnetwork Ranking of Roads for Infrastructure Asset Management
(J anuary 2008), Roads and Traffic Authority New South Wales.

Austroads 2011
- 77 -
Policy Number: PN134 Developing the Infrastructure Maintenance Forward Program (J uly 2007),
Roads and Traffic Authority New South Wales.
Infrastructure Maintenance Program Guidelines (May 2004), Roads and Traffic Authority New
South Wales.
Infrastructure Maintenance Program Guidelines (J uly 2007 draft), Roads and Traffic Authority
New South Wales.
Road Classification Guidelines in South Australia (J uly 2008), Local Government Association of
South Australia.
Assessing the Feasibility of a National Road Classification (October 2006), prepared for
Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying & Mapping
1301.0 Year Book Australia, 1974 History of Roads in Australia (September 2007), Australian
Bureau of Statistics.
NERA, (2005), Allocation of Road Track Costs to Goods Vehicles, Available
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/environment/nera/, Accessed 23 March 2009
Hirshorn, (2002), The Estimation of Road Wear and Capital Costs, Available
http://www.tc.gc.ca/pol/en/Report/fullcostinvestigation/Road/tp14481/tp14481.htm, Accessed
23 March 2009
Transit New Zealand, (1999), New Zealands Roading Cost Allocation Model
CE Delft (2008), Road Infrastructure Cost and Revenue in Europe, Produced within the study
Internalisation Measures and Policies for all external cost of Transport (IMPACT)
Deliverable 2
Link, H.(1999): Road Infrastructure Cost Accounting in the EU-Countries, (Award for the best paper
promoting European integration), Proceedings of the 27th European Transport Conference,
Cambridge, PTRC.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
Austroads, Improving Cost Allocation by Road Type, Sydney, A4, pp. 87. AP-
T195-12
Keywords:
maintenance reseals, maintenance enrichments, asphalt overlays, asphalt
retreatment, road rehabilitation, resheeting, reconstruction, heavy vehicle cost
allocation and pricing, road use and expenditure, expenditure categories, road
network classifications.
Abstract:
The overall objective of this project was to determine the most appropriate road
network classification for heavy vehicle cost allocation and pricing. This project
differs from previous investigations in that it includes:
- analysis of the relationship between road use and expenditure without
considering road condition; and
- analysis of data on expenditure and road use for expenditure categories B2
and D that covers the whole arterial road network for four States (and
Victorian local roads) instead of analysing only a sample of road sections.
The terms of reference for this project were to derive cost functions and resulting
road classifications, as far as possible, from actual nationwide road use and
expenditure data, which had not previously been attempted in Australia.
Overall, the statistical analysis has demonstrated that, on the basis of existing data
from four states, the relationship between road use and expenditure does not
provide a strong basis for determining the most appropriate road network
classification.
There are a number of key data limitations that constrain the usefulness of results:
- Expenditure data is only available for up to 10 years this implies that a full
pavement life cycle is not captured and there is a high number of roads
sections with zero expenditure;
- Heavy vehicle road use data is not routinely collected for different vehicle
classes consequently AADT and the percentage of heavy vehicles had to
be used to derive PCU, AGM and ESA which leads to high collinearity
between road use parameters;
- Only a small number of road network classifications could be tested for all
states;
- The relationship between road use and expenditure is partially influenced
by funding availability and strategies, which may obscure the relationship
between road use and road wear;
- There is limited data available on the age of pavements or the timing of the
previous periodic maintenance or rehabilitation treatments.
Detailed data on expenditure and road use on local roads was not available to
compare the results for arterial roads to local roads.
Overall, the benefits and costs of different ways forward need to be considered.
The benefits are generally related to greater certainty of results which would lead to
a change in heavy vehicle charges and therefore translate in efficiency gains. The
costs mainly include further research or resources required for data collection.

AP-T195-12 Web PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

AP-T195-12 Web PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

AP-T195-12

AUSTROADS TECHNICAL REPORT

You might also like