Economic Benefits of the Michigan Department of Transportation’s2007–2011 Highway Program

The purpose of this study is to conduct an economic benefit analysis of the Michigan Department of Transportation’s (MDOT's) current Five-Year Highway Program. Through this program, MDOT makes substantial investments in the highway system throughout the state of Michigan, spending approximately $1.3 billion annually on the preservation, maintenance, and enhancement of the state’s road and bridge system. The general approach to determine the benefit of pursuing trunkline road and bridge system improvement was to take annual state-level program data provided by MDOT, and in combination with information and parameters considered as standard for this type of analysis, generate: (1) mappings of program expenditures into the appropriate policy levers for the Regional Economic Models, Incorporated (REMI) economic model; (2) estimates of annual travel-time savings for households and businesses (valued for each specific trip class) in terms of vehicle-hours of travel; and (3) the economic benefits accruing to the Michigan economy and its major industry sectors from these program expenditures and travel-time savings.