Estimating Farm Vehicle Travel Costs on Local Rural Roads

Abstract

The local rural road and bridge system is under physical stress from heavy and wide farm vehicle travel. It is also under financial stress from the prospect of declining revenues for maintaining and rebuilding the system. There are significant research opportunities for agricultural economists to evaluate alternative investment strategies to reduce the net cost of the local rural road system. A major input in the evaluation of alternative investment strategies on these road systems is the change in vehicle travel costs if maintenance levels are changed or the road systems themselves are changed. Registered vehicle variable travel costs -automobiles and trucks -can be obtained from previous studies or are easily generated from raw data. However, only one analysis has been found that estimates the costs of farm tractor and combine travel on paved and gravel roads. This paper presents a procedure and a set of estimates of farm tractor and combine travel costs on these roads.