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Design > Costs and Benefits |
What Determines Price?
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 How
much do they cost?
"Every
state department of transportation should be installing
continuous shoulder rumble strips on at least all their
rural highways this year. They have no investments in
anything that are even remotely close to this opportunity."
-- John A. Alexander, P.E., Professor
of Civil Engineering, U. of Maine
Author of Fatigue Related Accidents and Continuous Shoulder
Rumble Strips
Based
on FHWA/NYSDOT accident costs for 1993, the prevention
of a single fatality would cover the costs to treat over
1,700 miles of highway shoulder.*
88:1
The New York Thruway Authority determined that for every
$1 spent on the construction of the 7-inch milled shoulder
rumble strip, they saved motorists $88 in insurance costs,
property damage, lost wages, quality of life, medical expenses
and other costs associated with run-off the road accidents.
(B/C ratio calculated by the New York State Thruway Authority
using FHWA/NYSDOT accident costs. Based on the average number
of fall-asleep accidents per month recorded before and after
the construction of 7-inch milled rumble strips on over
106 miles of highway shoulder.)**
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| What
Determines Price? |
Advances in SPT's numerically controlled NoisePrint mills
have driven a dramatic decrease in pricing since the PA Turnpike
introduced the 7-inch milled rumble strip in 1989. Highway
authorities have also taken the following measures to preserve
the best quality and price in shoulder rumble strips:
Project
size:
Project size has the single greatest impact on unit pricing.
Projects in excess of 100 shoulder miles (25 lane miles x
4 shoulders) always receive more competitive bids. Larger
projects also guard against the poor performance of prototype
machines, which contractors will sometimes risk using on small
resurfacing projects.
Rumble Strip only projects:
At first, some highway authorities only constructed rumble
strips as part of larger resurfacing projects. Today, however,
most construction takes place on stand-alone rumble strip
contracts. The larger quantities drive down bid prices, and
highway authorities can qualify low bidders better than when
rumble strips are a small subcontracted item.
Also, by treating hundreds of miles of shoulder on one project,
highway authorities don't have to wait 7-15 years for the
next resurfacing to take advantage of this safety improvement.
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*Based
on construction costs to treat over 100 shoulder miles.
**Benefit/cost ratios vary with traffic volumes and accident
rates. Various agencies across the United States have found
BCRs ranging between 20 and 200. |
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