Measuring users' impact to support economic growth through Transportation Asset Management planning

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), was enacted by the US Congress to support the economic growth of regions. With this in mind, the state Departments of Transportation (DOT) policies for allocating construction and maintenance funds for infrastructural rehabilitation represent a mechanism to spur economic growth. Economic downturns highlight the importance of a transparent, cost-effective methodology for allocation of scarce resources that provide equity to the entire population of road users. The paper proposes adding social and economic components to the current traffic-based prioritisation method for low-volume, rural bridges in Iowa and evaluates the potential change in the distribution of funding among the state's structurally deficient bridges. The proposed method illustrates the value-added of transportation infrastructure projects to the state's agricultural economy, concluding that the addition of socioeconomic factors to the current decision-making process can increase the net benefit of the investments in low-volume bridges to the state's agricultural economy.