Evaluating Transportation Improvements Quantitatively: A Primer

Treb Allen, Woan Foong Wong and Simon Fuchs

No 2025-13, FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Abstract: How do we evaluate the welfare gains from transportation infrastructure investment? We present a quantitative spatial framework that integrates both traffic and economic responses to infrastructure investment and derive the elasticity of aggregate welfare to improvements in the transportation network. This approach extends the traditional "social savings" method to incorporate agglomeration and dispersion externalities and endogenous traffic congestion. We calibrate the model to the US freight transport network and assess the welfare impact of upgrading segments of the US Interstate Highway System, quantifying the marginal gains from improvements in specific corridors and highlighting where the returns to investment are highest.

Keywords: transportation networks; infrastructure; social savings; quantitative spatial models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H54 R12 R13 R41 R42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2025-10-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-tre and nep-ure
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Published in 2025

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedawp:101968

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DOI: 10.29338/wp2025-13

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