外文翻譯----公路保修條款的評(píng)析

1、Valuing the Warranty Ceiling Clause on New Mexico Highway 44 Using a Binomial Lattice ModelAbstract: In 1998 the New Mexico State Highway and Transportation Department (NMSHTD) agreed to pay $60 million for a 20-year pav

2、ement warranty on their Route 44 project (NM 44, now US 550). The warranty includes a ceiling clause that caps total expenditures at $110 million. As the first long-term highway warranty in the United States, the transac

3、tion set a controversial precedent that parties interested in innovative highway contracting, including other state department of transportations (DOTs), the USDOT, sureties, and contractors, view as a test case for eval

4、uating pricing and cost-effectiveness. An interim audit report published by the State of' New Mexico [Abbey (2004). Rep.to the Legislative Finance Committee, State Highway and Transportation Department. Santa Fe. N.M

5、.] provides invaluable fiscal projections and challenges the cost effectiveness of the $60 million expenditure. This paper presents an independent analysis of the effectiveness of the warranty clauses. Based upon NMSHTD

6、 data, the analysis contends that $60 million was a fair cost of the 20-year pavement warranty at the time of acceptance if the expenditure ceiling is not considered. Furthermore. this paper argues that the ceiling on ex

7、penditure can be valuable. Using the real options approach, the paper evaluates the warranty ceiling clause on NM 44 and some policy suggestions are discussed.Introduction：State Departments of Transportation (DOT) turned

8、 increasingly proactive when awarding large highway pavement contracts as a result of the United States Federal Highway Administration's (FHwA) Special Experimental Projects (SEPs). SEP No. 14, implemented in 1990, o

9、pened the door for innovative contracting methods including lane rental, cost-plus-time bidding, design.build techniques, and warranty clauses. The warranty clauses hold contractors liable for reparationfor performance f

10、ailures within a warranty period that typically extends from 5 to 7 years.Though New Mexico was not among the original eight states that initiated the use of warranties under SEP No. 14. they have since evaluated the opt

11、ion of warranty contracting and success-fully applied it to the New Mexico State Route 44 Project (now U.S. 550), numbers, the warranty pricing was $6,400/lane mi/year, a 60% reduction as compared to the initial evaluat

12、ion ( Mav et al. 2003). Additionally, the warranty duration was limited by three ceiling clauses: (1) 20 years of service life: (2) 4,000,000 equivalent single axle loads (ESALs); and (3) $114 million in total expenditur

13、es, of which $1 l0 million is the ceiling for the pavement warranty and $4 million is the ceiling for the structure warranty. Thus, in return for $62 million. Mesa PDC agreed to provide up to $114 million in repairs over

14、 a period of 20 years or 4 million ESALs. To ensure the fiscal liability was met. the warranty was also backed by a performance bond.The parties established what constitutes warranted pavement defects based on objective

15、criteria such as smoothness, rutting, transverse crack spacing, crack width, potholes, depressions.bleeding, raveling,and delaminations. Because the warranty provider shoulders the risks associated with performance, they

16、 have a strong incentive to assure quality in the design, composition, and construction of the pavement. The parties also developed plans to monitor performance and perform both preventative and routine maintenance to en

17、sure the highway’s health. 2 Discounted Cash Flow AnalysisIn a recent interim report of the NM 44 warranty audit, the state of New Mexico challenged the cost effectiveness of the $62 million warranty (Abbey 2004). This i

18、nterim report and its predecessor (Abbey 1999) provide invaluable cost projections on the NM 44 project and the associated warranty. Using these data we conducted our own cost analysis based on the information available

19、to the NMSHTD when they made the warranty decision in 1998.So for this analysis,all warrafity benefits and costs incurred during the construction and warranty period were discounted back to the decision time in 1998, and

20、 all costs ,and payments were assumed to fall at the end of the year. Additionally, we considered only the pavement warranty which is valued at $60 million and explains 96.8% of the total warranty cost. Ignoring the stru

21、ctures warranty, which is valued at only $2 million, reduces ambiguity without any significant impact on the results. Farthermore. Abbey (2004) estimates that the structures warranty will expire before the end of the 10-

22、year warranty period, while the pavement warranty probably will remain in effect for the entire 20-year term. 3 Discussion and Policy SuggestionsDue to the ceiling clause, the price of the warranty provisions in the NM 4