Most plant owners in India specify concrete for a truck yard. It is hard, it looks permanent, and an IRC:58 design is easy to approve. The cost comes twice: on the day the slab is poured, and over the decades of joint sealing and slab repairs that follow.
We ran one typical yard through the GridMats Design Engine to put both costs side by side.
The yard
- 10,000 m² (about 1.08 lakh sq ft) of truck parking and marshalling
- 150 trucks a day, soil CBR 5%, 15 years of design traffic
- Hyderabad rates, ex-GST
Two sections for the same traffic
- Concrete road to IRC:58-2015, 580 mm in all. A 280 mm M40 slab with dowelled joints, on 150 mm of dry lean concrete and a 150 mm granular drainage layer.
- GridMats S1, cement-treated gravel, 415 mm in all. A non-woven geotextile separation layer on the compacted subgrade, 200 mm of GSB and 150 mm of WMM, a 25 mm bedding layer, then the 40 mm OC-HD 40 grid filled with 6–12 mm chips treated with 5% cement, compacted and brushed flush.
What it costs
| Section | To build | Over 35 years, in today's money |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete, IRC:58 | ₹330 per sq ft (₹3,548 per m²) ₹3.55 Cr for the yard | ₹382 per sq ft (₹4,112 per m²) ₹4.11 Cr for the yard |
| GridMats S1 | ₹186 per sq ft (₹2,003 per m²) ₹2.00 Cr for the yard | ₹210 per sq ft (₹2,262 per m²) ₹2.26 Cr for the yard |
| S1 against concrete | 44% less | 45% less |
The geotextile separation layer under the base is a separate BoQ item and is not included in the GridMats figures above.
How we worked out 35 years
We follow the US Federal Highway Administration's practice for life-cycle cost: a 35-year period, a 4% real discount rate, and credit for the service life left at the end of the period.
- Concrete: joints resealed every 10 years, and diamond grinding with slab repairs at 20 years, the schedule Washington State's highway department uses.
- S1: a top-up of chips and cement on the surface every 10 years. This is our planning assumption.
- Routine upkeep: 0.5% of the build cost a year for both.
At an 8% real rate the order stays the same: ₹201 per sq ft (₹2,160 per m²) for S1 against ₹360 per sq ft (₹3,878 per m²) for concrete.
What else changes
- Opening. Light traffic in three days and trucks in seven, once the 7-day cubes reach 2 MPa, not four weeks.
- No saw-cut joints, no dowels. The cells arrest shrinkage cracks, so there is no joint cutting or sealing crew.
- Repairs cell by cell. Damaged cells are refilled, not cut out.
- Cement. About 37 t for the S1 yard, all of it in the 40 mm layer, against about 1,345 t in the concrete slab and its lean-concrete base (Design Engine estimate for this yard).
- Recycled plastic. About 66 t of recycled polypropylene put to use in the grid.
What about asphalt or paver blocks?
For this yard, our numbers put a bituminous section and concrete paver blocks below S1, both to build and over 35 years. That is why every GridMats estimate shows them beside your own section and the GridMats options. The right choice depends on how the yard is used: parked and turning trucks, spills, how often you can close it for repairs, and what your approvals ask for.
Your yard will differ
These are indicative figures for one typical yard. Soil, traffic, local rates, freight and the base design change them, and every GridMats site is priced from its own design. Ask for your free estimate: our engineers follow with the design, the bill of quantities and the cost comparison against your conventional section.