ABC uses both new technology and innovative project management techniques to reduce the impact of bridge construction projects on the public and to reduce bridge construction costs. In particular, ABC can lead to substantially lower user delay costs and significantly lower traffic control costs. While the potential advantages of ABC are recognized, transportation personnel do not have an established protocol to quantify the risks and economic benefit of using ABC over conventional construction for specific bridge replacement or rehabilitation projects.

This pooled fund effort will develop a project-level tool for engineers and decision-makers to quantitatively assess the utility of ABC in the early project development stage and to determine whether or not ABC is more economically effective than conventional construction for a given bridge replacement or rehabilitation project.

The final tool set will allow the user to specify key project characteristics (e.g. bridge length, complexity, road user characteristics, environmental requirements, traffic levels, existing levels of congestion, and construction site attributes) and to evaluate the economic impact of applying various ABC technologies and management approaches such as rapid, onsite construction, standardization, or PBES to a particular project. This tool will incorporate not only construction costs (including traffic control costs) but also include estimates of soft costs including user delays resulting from congestion, rerouting, and/or closures associated with the project.

Oregon is using A highways for Life Grant and other internal funding sources to cover $80,000 of the $112,000 project cost. We are seeking $32,000 in additional partner commitments from other states.