The application and development of the rural roads evaluation model - merri

At the fourth Australian Road Research Board conference, a paper was presented describing the structure of a computer based model that had been developed to economically evaluate specified improvements to rural roads, or find the economic optimum schedule of improvements to a road segment. This paper outlines the computer procedures that were developed to apply the merri model (model for the economic evaluation of rural road improvements) to the multiplicity of road projects contained in the rural part of the Australian road survey. Recent revisions and refinements to merri are described, current work outlined, and the model related to comparable work currently proceeding overseas. A brief discussion is also presented of the results of sensitivity analyses that have been made, the use of the model to guide the review of design standards, and some results of the use of the model for optimization analyses (a).