Peter Mackie

The value of travel time savings in evaluation

Values of travel time enter the appraisal scheme both as values for modelling and forecasting and as values for use within project evaluation. This paper considers whether and how travel time values should be used within evaluation. The basic theories of private and social travel time valuation are set out. Issues such as the valuation of working time savings, the case for segmenting values by journey purpose and length, sign and size of time savings and mode of travel, and the income elasticity of the value of time, are reviewed. Two of the main conclusions are that time is a scarce resource and should be valued but that direct use of willingness to pay values is inappropriate for social appraisal of projects. Some form of social weighting scheme is required.

Economic appraisal of European transport projects: The state-of-the-art revisited

Substantial investment has been made at national and European level in transport infrastructure over the past 50 years and is likely to continue in the future. The need to appraise transport projects in economic and social terms has developed alongside this in both scope and complexity. The state-of-the-art in the economic appraisal of transport projects is reviewed, progress is assessed and future challenges are identified. The review addresses the general framework, treatment of major impacts, presentation of outputs and issues such as uncertainty. It draws on national practice in Western European countries, which varies substantially reflecting a range of cultural and economic differences. Some points of commonality exist and the principle of monetizing direct transport impacts is generally accepted. Progress has been made towards the measurement of environmental impacts, but the assessment of the wider impacts remains under-developed. Increased sophistication and complexity has brought increasing data...

DEREGULATING THE BUS INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN : B, THE CASE AGAINST

Abstract In its White Paper ‘Buses’, the British Government sets out its proposals for creation of a freer local bus service sector than exists in any developed industrial economy in the world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the basis and nature of the proposals, and particularly to assess the validity of the analysis that has been presented in support of them. The White Paper diagnosis of the bus industry is that a potentially virile sector is being stifled to such an extent by regulation that the variety and quality of service is poor, demand is unnecessarily low, and costs unnecessarily high. The prescription is for a heavy dose of free competition on the road between commercially motivated, financially autonomous companies, supported (lest the cure be worse than the disease) by tighter quality regulation, fair competition protections, and direct support of socially desirable unremunerative services. The prognosis is the elimination of cross‐subsidy, the introduction of new types of service, a...

Induced traffic and economic appraisal

Economic appraisal of major roads in the UK is based on a set of standard procedures and conventions. A central assumption has been that the volume and pattern of traffic in any given year is independent of the quality of service offered by the network — the fixed trip matrix assumption. Failing to consider induced traffic can have serious consequences for the accuracy and robustness of the measured traffic benefits from road improvements. Assessment of the wider economic benefits of roads, which is an important political imperative for road investment, is also made more difficult. Two conclusions are reached. Variable trip matrix methods need to be introduced for the appraisal of major road schemes, and scheme appraisal needs to be complemented by a more strategic area-wide approach to evaluation. In responding to its advisory committee (SACTRA), the UK Department of Transport has accepted the first of these conclusions and is cautiously favourable to the second.

Transport projects, programmes and policies: Evaluation needs and capabilities

The Role of Evaluation: Transport appraisal in a policy context, Peter Mackie and John Nellthorp Strategic transport planning evaluation - the Scandinavian experience, Henning Lauridsen Old myths and new realities of transport infrastructure assessment - implications for EU interventions in Central Europe, Deike Peters Norwegian urban road tolling - what role for evaluation?, Odd I. Larsen. Technical Aspects of Evaluation: Spatial economic impacts of transport infrastructure investments, Jan Oosterhaven and Thijs Knaap The economic development effects of transport investments, David Banister and Yossi Berechman European versus national level evaluation - the case of the PBKAL high-speed rail project, Rana Roy Welfare basis of evaluation, Marco Ponti Conceptual foundations of cost-benefit analysis - a minimalist account, Robert Sugden. Evaluation in the Policy Process: Impact assessment of strategic road management and development plan of Finnish road administration, Eeva Linkama, Mervi Karhula, Seppo Lampinen and Anna Saarlo Major infrastructure transport projects decision-making process - interactions between outputs and outcomes as a contemporary public action, Marianne Ollivier-Trigalo Involving stakeholders in the evaluation of transport pricing, Jose M. Viegas and Rosario Macario Accessibility analysis concepts and their application to transport policy, programme and project evaluation, Derek Halden Strategic environmental assessment and its relationship to transportation projects, Paul Tomlinson and Chris Frey.

The Use of Multicriteria Techniques to Rank Highway Investment Proposals

Local authority transport planners are annually faced with the problem of selecting, from a wide range of proposals, a sub-set of projects which is in some sense “best” relative to their investment budget constraint. The choice is a complex one, for at least three reasons. The range of proposals is often wide in terms of project type, cost and impacts. Many of the impacts are difficult to quantify, both in theory and practice. Finally, there is not a single decision maker, but a series of groups, each with legitimate interests in what proposals should go ahead.

Deregulating the bus industry in Britain: a rejoinder

Abstract In our critique for the Buses White Paper, we argued that ‘competition for licences’ could achieve most of the benefits of competition without the major disadvantages of ‘competition on the road’. In response to the comments of Beesley and Glaister, we explain how comprehensive franchising of good and bad routes alike would encourage effective competition, whilst providing conditions for the transparent continuation of cross‐subsidy where that was the choice of the local authority in question. We correct their misrepresentation of our arguments on the desirability of cross‐subsidy and on the case for minibuses, and explain why we believe that such cost savings as are achieved will be mainly at the expense of staff or customer service. Finally, we restate the case for believing that a unified planned timetable will provide a better service for a given level of resources than will uncoordinated competitive services.

Financing Roads in Great Britain

The British tradition of road finance and procurement has been one of almost complete separation between decisions on road user taxation and expenditure on roads. Road users pay taxes which are set by the Treasury alongside income and indirect taxes as part of fiscal policy. Expenditures on roads are undertaken by a mixture of the Highways Agency for national roads and local authorities for local roads. It is worth noting two significant moments in history. The principal sources of taxation in Great Britain are from road vehicles are fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. Governments have adopted a rather loose policy that all classes of road user should pay taxes a t least to cover their road use costs. This was seen as an important principle for heavy goods vehicles, in order to assure “fair compensation” between road and rail-based freight transport. This led to engineering and economic studies of the cost structure of road provision and relationships with taxes. For many years, until the mid-1990s, an annual report of road use costs and taxes was produced, though there remained many questions about vehicle categories, allocated cost formulae, on average versus marginal costs, treatment of external costs and so on.

Efficiency and performance indicators: The case of the bus industry

The role of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission as an efficiency auditor of the public sector is a difficult one. It has to cover a wide range of industries which have very different economic characteristics. On the face of it, its recent investigation of the bus industry should have been relatively easy, since that consists of a large number of operators using similar ways of producing the same kind of service. Nevertheless, this investigation failed on a number of crucial points.

Competition in the bus industry

Along with independent television and air transport, buses are one of the few regulated British industries. Attempts to introduce an element of genuine competition through the 1980 Transport Act have largely failed. Contracting and franchising provide alternative options.