A methodology is outlined for estimating incremental pavement rehabilitation and capacity-related costs that would be occasioned by loading an increment of bulk commodity traffic on a highway link. The cost estimates are referred to as" build-sooner costs" because they represent the financial impact of the increment of traffic on the future timing of pavement rehabilitation and capacity improvement projects. The analysis encompasses eight bulk commodity truck movement scenarios in the Province of New Brunswick, Canada. The build-sooner costs are compared with incremental user fee revenues that would be generated by these movements if they were to be captured by the truck mode.

The methodology described in this paper was developed as part of a much larger research project on incremental costs and revenues occasioned by the trucking of bulk commodities on selected highway links in the Province of New Brunswick, Canada (1). That study examined five broad categories of incremental cost and three categories of incremental revenues, with the objective of assessing whether trucking firms enjoy an inherent advantage in competing for the movement of bulk commodities in the province. Such an advantage would exist if the incremental public costs of these truck movements were not fully recovered through highway user fcco, The focus of this paper is on describing the methodology developed to estimate one of the five categories of incremental cost. The cost component in question shall hereafter be referred to as" build-sooner costs."