Transport appraisal revisited

Peter Mackie, Tom Worsley and Jonas Eliasson ()

Research in Transportation Economics, 2014, vol. 47, issue C, 3-18

Abstract: Cost-benefit analysis has become a widely used and well developed tool for evaluation of suggested transport projects. This paper presents our view of the role and position of CBA in a transport planning process, partly based on a survey of a number of countries where CBA plays a formalised role in decision making. The survey shows that methodologies, valuations and areas of application are broadly similar across countries. All countries place the CBA results in a comprehensive assessment framework that also includes various types of non-monetised benefits. An important advantage with using CBA is that it is a way to overcome cognitive, structural and process-related limitations and biases in decision making. Some of the main challenges to CBA and to quantitative assessment in general lie in the institutional and political context. There is often a risk that CBA enters the planning process too late to play any meaningful role. This risk seems to increase when planning processes are centred around a perceived “problem”. If the problem is perceived as important enough, even inefficient solutions may be viewed as better than nothing, despite that the definition of what constitutes a “problem” is often arbitrary.

Keywords: Cost-benefit analysis; Project appraisal; Transport investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H43 R42 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:retrec:v:47:y:2014:i:c:p:3-18

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DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2014.09.013

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