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Throughout the world, the use of some kind of a formal transportation project evaluation procedure is a requirement. Yet, by and large, these are partial; in fact, much weight is often placed on the initial -pre-engineering -phases of the planning process, when vital information, such as accurate costs and demand projections, is largely missing. Moreover, many of these procedures neglect to consider key issues such as project's risks, capital costs financing, latent demand, market imperfections, labor force availability and various incompatibilities between trip rates, travel times and activity location. As a result, projects, which are judged as viable under such deficient evaluation schemes, may have had a significantly different projection of capital costs and demand should a well-founded, thorough, and efficient evaluation process be used.
Against this background, this book's main objective is to construct a comprehensive and methodical economic, planning and decision-making framework for the evaluation of proposed transportation infrastructure investment projects. Such a framework is founded on four key principles. It is based on well-established economic, transportation and policy-analysis theoretical principles; it is comprehensive enough to encompass all relevant evaluation issues; it is applicable to a wide range of transportation investment projects; and it is amenable to empirical application including a sensitivity analysis and alternative scenarios regarding urban, regional and national developments.
List of contents
Preface. 1. Objectives, Scope and Structure. 2. The Policy Framework of Project Evaluation. 3. Welfare Foundations of Project Appraisal. 4. Transportation Benefits from Infrastructure Improvements. 5. Measuring the Costs of Transportation Investment Projects. 6. Methods of Project Cost-Benefit Analysis. 7. Traffic Flow, Congestion and Infrastructure Investment. 8. Measurement of Benefits from Transportation Improvements: Computational Issues. 9. Risk and Uncertainty in Transportation Project Evaluation. 10. Financing Transportation Investment Projects. 11. Transportation Improvements and Equity. 12. Environmental and Safety Externalities. 13. Transportation Investments and Economic Development. 14. Alternative Methods of Project Selection. 15. Why Are Inferior Transportation Investment Projects Selected? Notes. References. Index.
About the author
Joseph Berechman
Summary
This book constructs a comprehensive and methodical economic, planning and decision-making framework for the evaluation of proposed transportation infrastructure investment projects, based on well-established theoretical principles.
Additional text
'Berechman has written a technically sound and highly practical guide that could substantially improve the quality of assessments of transportation investment projects.' Jonathan Gifford (George Mason University, USA)
