A Comprehensive Study on Life Cycle Cost Examination for a Road (Preamser Hirnikheda Mundla) Project in Madhya Pradesh
Authors: Dhabal Arghya 
Published: September 2021

Abstract: A Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) is need to performed at the design period of the projects in order to be proficient to performed more profitable, to help take decision for type of pavement selection either flexible or rigid and also, to decide the comparative expense of different type of pavement. Specially for developing countries like India, due to insufficient funds for the project. However, now-a-days in India many infrastructure development projects like highways are being executed through loan from different external funding agencies like Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank, New Development Bank (NDB) etc. in case of a highway construction project, the major expenditure involves in construction of pavements. Therefore, before constructing a new road it is essential to check the life cycle cost analysis of different pavement options to select a most economical pavement option form techno-economic consideration. It is obvious that in our country most of the existing pavements are flexible pavement which has lower design life and higher maintenance requirements due to unpredictable traffic growth with heavy axel load as compared to the rigid pavements. Nowadays rainfall rate also generally found uncertain so at rainy seasons. So lots of case found that the highways are submersed during flood. These is the most common issue found in our developing country. For that bituminous pavements found damaged and cracked mostly. For that Rigid pavements are a good substitute on Flexible pavements, Rigid pavement have long life cycle (30 years as per IRC) with less maintenance cost, But the cost of construction of rigid pavement is higher than that of flexible pavement, but the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) including all maintenance are much less than of flexible pavements and its equally effective at submersible condition even in case of rehabilitation of existing bituminous pavements, concrete overlays or white topping can be good and beneficial alternative when compared to bituminous overlays. In the present study, an attempt is made to evaluate and compare the LCC of flexible and rigid pavements to be used for rehabilitation of an existing bituminous road. It provides results about the best suitable, economical and cost effective pavements. Net present value method of LCC is used for evaluating the pavements, this method takes into consideration initial construction cost and maintenance cost for design life period of both the pavements. With the help of this analysis a comparison of total life cycle cost of concrete pavements and bituminous pavements can be found out and best pavement alternative can be considered. Life cycle cost analysis: It is an important economic analysis used in the selection of alternatives that impact both initial and future cost. It evaluates the cost efficiency of alternatives based on the net present value (NPV) method which provides the total cost required during life cycle of the project. Keywords: Life Cycle Cost, Preamsar – Hirnikheda - Mundla Road, Rigid Pavement, Flexible Pavement, Traffic, Cost Estimates, MPRDC, Major District Roads.