Simulation Approach to Assess Highway Performance

A procedure is presented that can be utilized to estimate the impacts of alternative financing policies and other highway related factors on future highway system performance. The approach is to first simulate the present highway performance characteristics, such as pavement condition, volume/capacity ratio, lane width and so on, and then apply a series of equations to forecast the impacts of total vehicle and commercial vehicle travel growth, future vehicle weight distributions, the availability of future highway improvement funds, and inflationary pressures. The proposed procedure provides projections of highway performance with minimal data requirements and is designed with considerable flexibility to facilitate present usage and future modification.