ABSTRACT
Whole-life costing (WLC) – sometimes referred to as life cycle costing
(LCC) – is a way of determining the total cost of a bridge structure from its
initial conception to the end of its service life.
It attempts to quantify, in present monetary terms, the costs arising from
all work undertaken on a certain structure. This is referred to as a net present
value (NPV) or a single current cost. In other words, it tries to answer the
question: ‘How much will this bridge cost in today’s money over its entire
life?’ The PVA technique involves the calculation of the cost of alternative
schemes in present day monetary terms, i.e. the amounts that are required in
today’s value to obtain goods and services at any future date. This enables the
whole-life cost of a bridge to be determined and is based on a simple
investment principle. The costs to be included would be those arising from
design, construction, repair, maintenance and upgrading, traffic manage-
ment and delays and possibly demolition.
