Evaluation of highway geometrical standard on operational cost of highway

The three main components of transportation are human, vehicle, and infrastructure. During the operation of the transportation system, the problems of these components both in themselves and in their relations with each other are defined as "cost". In the planning stage of the transportation system, the costs to be encountered during operation must be identified and analyzed. In this context, it is very important to determine the operating costs separately and to evaluate their effects on the highway transportation that is heavily used in our country. Operating costs in the highway transportation are divided into four main categories; vehicle operation cost, emission cost, time loss cost, and road safety cost. Among them, the vehicle operation cost has the greatest cost value. Characteristic features of the highway are of great importance to reduce these costs that directly affect the user, such as fuel consumption, maintenance, and repair. In this study, highway operating costs and methods for calculating costs sre examined in detail. The effect of the change in software parameters on the project cost is analyzed by using the HDM-4 software developed by the World Bank to calculate highway operating costs. In this study, the effect of the change in software parameters is determined for a specific highway. Consequently, effects of the parameters that are used for vehicle operation, environmental effects and the geometric properties of the highway are exposed.