UK ROAD SALTING - AN INTERNATIONAL BENEFIT/COST REVIEW

Several 'value-for-money' studies have been conducted in various parts of the world, to assess the benefits and costs of winter maintenance. This paper reviews these international cost-benefit studies and examines their relevance for the UK. A table compares the results of cost-benefit studies in the USA and UK at various dates and in Norway in 1995; it shows which benefits and costs occurred, and in some cases quantifies them. The benefits considered are reduced road accidents, reduced traffic delays, emergency response, and fuel economy. The costs considered are vehicle corrosion, bridge and road corrosion, street furniture corrosion, water contamination, vegetation and soil drainage, and the cost of spreading de-icing salts. The costs and benefits in the UK are discussed briefly. Several new concepts are interpreted, including the development of an objective method, at the micro level, to determine which roads and what proportion of roads should be salted in a region. At present, the proportion of roads salted in the UK varies from over 60% in some local authorities to less than 20% in others, At the macro level, a new cost-benefit model is presented, which shows a benefit/cost ratio of 8 for the winter maintenance of roads in the UK.