Impact of Super Heavy Load Vehicles on Transportation Infrastructure: Economic Aspects

Abstract Sometimes, there is a need to transport very heavy equipment, so heavy that the resulting load is several times larger than the maximal load that the corresponding road segment was designed to withstand. Such super heavy load vehicles decrease the remaining service life of the road segment, and sometimes even make the segment unusable and needing repairs. In both cases, the need for earlier-than-expected repairs means additional costs. It is therefore desirable to estimate the expected value of this additional cost. In locations where the owner of the super heavy load vehicle pays for the vehicle passage, this is necessary to decide how much to charge the owner. In other locations, where the agreement is that the cost of additional repairs comes from the additional taxes that the vehicle owners pay, such an estimate is needed to the road owners -- e.g., to the county or to the state -- so as to select the route for which the expected additional cost of repairs is the smallest.