Economics and Financing

This document contains estimates of road user unit costs for use in Australia, calculated as at 30 June 2007. The unit costs are presented in a format suitable for use with most road project evaluation models, techniques, and software used by Australian road agencies and their consultants. Estimates are not intended for use in New Zealand. Unit values have been calculated in ‘resource price’ terms, that is, excluding indirect taxes and government charges, but including subsidies paid to producers. Estimates of road user cost (RUC) inputs are provided at an individual component level for the following cost groupings: vehicle operating costs, travel time costs, crash costs and environmental externalities costs. Average crash costs are now reported for individual jurisdictions and the potential for extending the updating procedure to include crash costs based on road user movement and speed zones is also considered. Finally, updated parameter values for running speed models used to estimate vehicle operating costs and fuel usage for urban operations are supplied, based on a reduced form relationship derived from urban RUC models.