Norwegian politicians invest more money in roads in regions overrepresented in the Parliament because the expected political return is higher. And that is why Norwegian roads always have been, currently are and forever will be, a patchwork of high-standard and sub-standard roads.
This book is a welcome addition to the field of cost-benefit analysis in transportation. It contains individual contributions from 20 or so respected academics, each describing a separate field of study. I have seldom seen a fuller and more holistic approach to cost and benefits in transportation research.
This is a philosophical essay on transportation vulnerability, where three fields or subjects are brought together : engineering (reliability and vulnerability), economics (cost and benefits) and politics (decision making).The research essay aims at taking reliability and vulnerability into the realm of cost-benefit analysis to serve as decision support.
It is not the planning authorities or the central government who decides infrastructure development in Norway, but the local politicians. To put it simple, what in the US is known as “pork barrel spending” is what rules many of Norway’s infrastructure development projects. Why?
In the current financial downturn, much pressure has been on the government (here in Norway, and I bet elsewhere too) to initiate public works projects or other public investment projects in order to create or save jobs.
Classical facility location models assume that once optimally located and set up, facilities will operate as planned, smoothly, and without interruption. In reality, though, operations seldom go as planned; interruptions, unscheduled downtime and failures occur every once in a while, with unplanned and unbudgeted disruption costs as a consequence.
It is unfortunate that the decision-making process for infrastructure projects in Norway rests heavily on local and regional governments and less on the oversight of the national planning authorities. Overall socio-economic benefit is set aside to satisfy local desires or is simply overruled by successful local lobbyists.
The strength of the Norwegian impact assesment method is how non-monetizable impacts are handled and integrated with the framework of the impact assessment. The significance of the various impacts is then assessed by combining the value and the magnitude of impact on five criteria: landscape/cityscape, community life and outdoor recreation, cultural heritage, natural environment and natural resources.
This book by Anthony Boardman et al. is aheavy read. It is not a book you would want to read from A to Z in order to understand Cost-Benefit Analysis or CBA, but it is one of the better reference books I have found. The only downside I found was a very theoretical approach and lack of really useful examples.
Reliability and vulnerability are important elements in ensuring a smooth 24/7 operation of transportation networks, road networks in particular, and cost-benefit analyses of transportation projects should take this into account. One way of doing this is to say that investments in improved reliability constitute a cost and thereby saved disruption costs constitute a benefit.
A reliable transportation network represents a net benefit to society, and conversely, a vulnerable network represents a net cost to society. Hence, vulnerability ought to be an important parameter for decision-support in cost-benefit analyses, by seeking to establish a link between the terms reliability and vulnerability vis-à-vis costs and benefits.
Looking beyond the science of vulnerability assessments, this paper discusses some of the network attributes that influence the vulnerability of transport networks, influences that can be described as structure-related, nature-related or traffic-related attributes. The paper introduces vulnerability as a parameter for decision-support in cost-benefit analyses.
The paper outlines a framework for developing a methodology that to incorporate reliability and vulnerability as parameters for decision-support in a cost-benefit analysis. In doing so, this paper seeks to establish a link between the terms reliability/vulnerability and cost/benefit and seeks to describe reliability and vulnerability in terms of cost and benefit.
Why is the reliability, or conversely, the vulnerability, of the transportation network not a matter of evaluation in traditional cost-benefit analyses? Few will question that the sender, the recipient, the freight hauler or society in general, experience additional costs when goods or persons cannot reach their destinations in time or space.
I used this book to learn more about cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in tranportation planning, and albeit the book does not relate specifically to that field, it worked very well. The nice part is that it first discusses some macro-economical concepts before delving into cost-benefit calculations.
