A review of cost–benefit analysis and multicriteria decision analysis from the perspective of sustainable transport in project evaluation

Francis Marleau Donais (), Irène Abi-Zeid, E. Owen D. Waygood and Roxane Lavoie
Additional contact information
Francis Marleau Donais: Université Laval
Irène Abi-Zeid: Université Laval
E. Owen D. Waygood: Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal
Roxane Lavoie: Université Laval

EURO Journal on Decision Processes, 2019, vol. 7, issue 3, No 8, 327-358

Abstract: Abstract Transport decision processes have traditionally applied cost–benefit analysis (CBA) with benefits mainly relating to time-savings, and costs relating to infrastructure and maintenance costs. However, a shift toward more sustainable practices was initiated over the last decades to remedy the many negative impacts of automobility. As a result, decision processes related to transport projects have become more complex due to the multidimensional aspects and to the variety of stakeholders involved, often with conflicting points of view. To support rigourous decision-making, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is, in addition to CBA, often used by governments and cities. However, there is still no consensus in the transport field regarding a preferred method that can integrate sustainability principles. This paper presents a descriptive literature review related to MCDA and CBA in the field of transport. Among the 66 considered papers, we identified the perceived strengths and weaknesses of CBA and MCDA, the different ways to combine them and the ability of each method to support sustainable transport decision processes. We further analysed the results based on four types of rationality (objectivist, conformist, adjustive, and reflexive). Our results show that both methods can help improve the decision processes and that, depending on the rationality adopted, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of MCDA and CBA can vary. Nonetheless, we observe that by adopting a more global and holistic perspective and by facilitating the inclusion of a participative process, MCDA, or a combination of both methods, emerge as the more promising appraisal methods for sustainable transport.

Keywords: Sustainable transport; Multicriteria decision analysis; Cost–benefit analysis; Rationality; Decision aiding; 90B06; 90B50; 91B15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40070-019-00098-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurjdp:v:7:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s40070-019-00098-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/40070

DOI: 10.1007/s40070-019-00098-1

Access Statistics for this article

EURO Journal on Decision Processes is currently edited by Vincent Mousseau

More articles in EURO Journal on Decision Processes from Springer, EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().