From 1979 through 1982 the Federal Highway Administration contracted with the Texas Research and Development Foundation to update vehicle operating cost tables. In this research five components of vehicle operating cost were studied, including fuel consumption, maintenance and repair, oil consumption, tire consumption, and depreciation. The approach used in this research was to identify the consumption involved for each of these parameters and then to price these components to obtain vehicle operating costs. This approach allows future updating of the vehicle operating cost tables from simply knowing the changes in prices. This is highly desirable since component consumption changes much less frequently than the unit prices. The results of this research present a new set of table relating vehicle operating costs to the serviceability index of pavements and the geometric design features of the roads. The component consumption tables were established for constant speed and speed change cycle operations.

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