An Overview of Critical Issues in Transport Planning and Appraisal for LMICs with a Focus on New Approaches, User Benefits and the Environment

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and provide an overview of critical issues in transport planning and appraisal with a focus on new approaches, user benefits, economics and the environment.

A key theme of the paper is to test the validity of the conventional transport cost benefit analysis (CBA) and appraisal approaches that are central to transport planning. In Section 2, four reviews of current transport appraisal practises are presented. Overall, the reviewers were keen to reflect the need for sustainability, fairness and environmental concerns that are difficult to capture under a CBA framework. In Section 3, a review of road appraisal within the development banks is presented. Here it can be seen that, over time, there has been a shift in approach away from economic CBA in key decision documents, as more emphasis is placed on environmental and social effects. However, the question arises, has the pendulum swung too far?

In Section 4, The UK’s Government’s five stage business model is presented along with a framework for ‘Value for Money’. The use of monetised benefit cost ratios along with non-monetised Impacts is outlined to provide the best solution. In Section 5, Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), are explored as an approach for combining economics, the environment and social considerations. Overall, it appears that views are in flux on this. In Section 6, ‘Wider Economic Impacts’ are considered. Is it possible to push CBA to include more scenarios? The arguments in this area are often difficult to follow with little international consensus.

In Section 7, Some aspects of Sustainable Urban Transport are considered. Are active transport, a healthy lifestyle, and good access to bus rapid transit (BRT) sufficient to make us give up our beloved cars? If we can’t afford to live in high-rise developments, can we make do with high density, low rise living? How does ‘working from home’ change the argument? In Section 8, the impact benefits of rural roads are considered and look impressive. How do we adjust our CBA calculations to take account of this?

Transport and poverty is considered in Section 9, should we consider providing distributional weighting in a CBA? Or should we try to predict the distribution of benefits following an investment? Optimism bias is considered in Section 10, the impact of issues such as consultant bias, investment cost overruns, and poor traffic forecasts need to be taken into account.

The further development of the Highways Development Model- HDM-4, as it transitions to HrDM5.0 is outlined in Section 11, The disconnect between freight tariffs, loading efficiency and operating costs is discussed in Section 12, there is a need to better understand how these issues are likely to affect the outcomes of road investment. Outstanding issues with the modelling of vehicle operating costs and the introduction of electric vehicles are considered in Section 13, finally incorporating carbon emissions into road construction and building climate resilience are considered in Section 14, recommendations for further work are given in Section 15.