Increased resource utilization efficiency can be improved by modeling path costs during admission and path-selection. Specifically, path costs for candidate paths are modeled based on load characteristics (e.g., current load, load variation, etc.) of links in the candidate paths. Path costs can represent any quantifiable cost or liability associated with transporting a service flow over the corresponding path. For example, path costs can correspond to a probability that at least one link in the path will experience an outage when transporting the service flow, a price charged by a network operator (NTO) for transporting the traffic flow over the candidate path, or a total network cost for transporting the flow over a candidate path. The candidate path having the lowest path cost is selected to transport a service flow.