"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 378: State Highway Cost Allocation Studies examines the history and evolution of highway cost allocation study practice and explores the current state of the practice"--Publisher's description.

This study was commissioned by INDOT to investigate the cost responsibility and revenue contribution of highway users with regard to the upkeep of Indiana's state and local highway infrastructure. For revenues, user and non-user sources were considered. The highway users were represented by the 13 FHWA vehicle classes, and the study was based on 2009-2012 data on expenditures and revenues. The study framework duly recognized the dichotomy between attributable and common costs. For allocating the attributable costs to the vehicle classes, ESALs, AASHTO loading equivalents, and PCEs were used; for allocating common costs, VMT was used. For each vehicle class, the share of revenue contribution was compared to the share of cost responsibility to determine respective equity ratios and thus to ascertain the extent to which vehicles in each class may be currently underpaying or overpaying their cost responsibilities. The study also determined the distribution of fuel purchases and travel by out-of-state vehicles on Indiana's highways; this analysis was required to further refine the results of the cost allocation and to quantify the magnitude of any imbalance between the out-of-state travel and share of consumption on Indiana's infrastructure and the revenue from such out-of-state vehicles.Pavement and bridge expenditures were found to have a dominant share of the overall expenditures on Indiana's highway system. It was determined that the user revenue sources contributed approximately 63.5% of the total state funding for highway expenditures and 36.5% were from non-user revenue sources. The inability of user revenue sources to cover the total highway expenditure and the consequent partial reliance on non-user sources constitute a rather unstable funding situation particularly because the non-user sources are characterized by significant variability.This study found that inequities exist, albeit in varying degrees, among the highway user groups. Of the 13 vehicle classes, classes 1-4 were found to be overpaying their cost responsibilities while classes 5-13 are underpaying. The results of the equity analysis are generally consistent with those of studies carried out at other states.

The objectives of the current cost allocation study, the fifth in a series begun in 1982, include the following: 1) to evaluate current cost allocation methodologies and identify possible changes to Kentucky practices; and 2) to determine the 1991 fiscal year levels of cost responsibility and revenue contribution for each of several classes of highway users. Additional objectives include an evaluation of the equity of tax proposals advanced by the Kentucky Motor Transport Association, a preliminary determination of the revenue and cost implications of the Extended-Weight Coal Haul System, and an evaluation of the efficiency with which certain highway user taxes have been collected. As was the case in other recent cost-allocation studies, incremental cost assignment has been replaced with various highway use measures including vehicle-miles of travel, axle-miles, passenger-car-equivalent miles, and equivalent-single-axle-load miles. Results from the analysis indicate that cost responsibility was borne most heavily by passenger cars and motorcycles (44.2%). Other cost responsibilities were 24.6% for heavy trucks; 20.4% for pickups and vans; and 10.8% for all other groups. When compared to revenue for each vehicle class; cars, pickups and vans, and heavy trucks exceeded their cost responsibility, while medium trucks fell significantly short. From a limited examination of the Extended-Weight Coal Haul System, it was found that an estimated $2 million are lost annually from the Road Fund because fewer trucks are registered. Heavier weights of coal-decal trucks add approximately $9 million annually to pavement overlay costs. Related to tax collection, it was found that the weight-distance tax was collected at an efficiency of about 70% and other user-reported fuel taxes in the range of 75 to 77%.