Transport infrastructure plays a key role in economic development. A country”s economic growth and prosperity depend on having well-developed transport systems. Transport infrastructure projects are generally extremely expensive and have a long lifespan. In order to ensure that investment in transport infrastructure is as effective as possible, most countries and supra-national organisations try to evaluate their projects. However, the standard of planning and evaluation systems, usually based on cost-benefit and multi-criteria analysis, varies greatly from country to country and between the various modes of transport. This report looks at the situation and the evaluation methods for waterway, rail and road projects. The main focus, of course, is on the waterway system, but always with an eye to the competing transport systems. In order to maximise the benefits for the whole economy, the overall economic cost-benefit ratio is generally regarded as the appropriate evaluation criterion, but in many cases additional non-monetary factors complement the financial results. This report reviews the determining parameters and evaluation methods.
The following aspects are elaborated in Chapter 2 :
- principle of economic approach
- with/without principle
- alternative cost principle
- discounting rate
- base year
- calculatory period
- residential value
- traffic forecast methods
- cost-benefit ratio
Chapter 3 compares the cost of construction, running the infrastructure (maintenance and operation), transshipment, time-saving and external effects for the three transport modes of rail, road and waterway. Some remarks are made on cost allocation.
Chapter 4 looks at the intermodal aspects of transport. The strengths and weaknesses of the various transport modes are identified and a cost comparison is made.
Chapter 5 evaluates non-transport functions, including spatial and employment effects.
The final chapter addresses the need for further research. There are three main issues :
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as yet there is no official scientifically or empirically proven method for calculating what proportion of infrastructure costs should be attributed to goods transport, passenger transport and/or other functions;
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existing studies on the subject deal mainly with the question of how users should be charged for their use of transport infrastructure. Since most of these studies tend to use average figures, which may lead to completely erroneous conclusions, more data is needed;
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the various reports show an enormous variation in types of external cost and their valuation; the method”s theoretical foundation is still weak.
The working group strongly recommends promoting the acquisition of theoretical and empirical knowledge of the attribution of costs and external costs, in which case the European Union should be contacted about the subject and waterway, road, railway, environmental and economic experts should be involved in some new studies.
