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The City of Washington is considering adding new buses for its current mass-tran

ID: 1219095 • Letter: T

Question

The City of Washington is considering adding new buses for its current mass-transit system that links from the Tacoma International Airport to clustering city destinations on non-stop basis. The total investment package is worth $10 million and expected to last 10 years with a salvage value of $850,000. The annual operating and maintenance costs for buses would be $5 million during the first year and will grow by 5% each year over the previous year's O&M; costs thereafter. If the system is used for 800,000 trips per year, what would be the fair price to charge per trip? Assume that the City of Washington uses 5% interest rate for any city-sponsored project. Assume the fare will be the same for all destinations.

Explanation / Answer

The cash flows from the project can be listed as follows

NPV can be calculated as follows

=NPV(5%,F3:F12)+F2 = -64,162,608.81

Since these are costs, sign is negative

Now we have to find out the price at which profit are 0, So

64,162,608.81 = P * 800,000

P = 64,162,608.81 / 800,000 = $80.20 per trip

Year Initial Investment O&M Depreciation Salvage Value Total Cashflow 0 (10,000,000.00) (10,000,000.00) 1                             -   (5,000,000.00)          (915,000.00)     (5,915,000.00) 2                             -   (5,250,000.00)          (915,000.00)     (6,165,000.00) 3                             -   (5,512,500.00)          (915,000.00)     (6,427,500.00) 4                             -   (5,788,125.00)          (915,000.00)     (6,703,125.00) 5                             -   (6,077,531.25)          (915,000.00)     (6,992,531.25) 6                             -   (6,381,407.81)          (915,000.00)     (7,296,407.81) 7                             -   (6,700,478.20)          (915,000.00)     (7,615,478.20) 8                             -   (7,035,502.11)          (915,000.00)     (7,950,502.11) 9                             -   (7,387,277.22)          (915,000.00)     (8,302,277.22) 10                             -   (7,756,641.08)          (915,000.00)        850,000.00     (7,821,641.08)