EEM2 (TDM & transport services) Ch 7 Benefits and costs of transport services
Summary
This chapter provides the detailed methods for calculating and reporting the benefits and costs of transport service proposals
- 7.1 - Benefits and costs of transport services
- 7.2 - Transport service user benefits
- 7.3 - Congestion benefits
- 7.4 - Accident reduction benefits
- 7.5 - Disbenefits during implementation/construction
- 7.6 - Other benefits and national strategic factors
- 7.7 - Costs to government
- 7.8 - Present value of benefits and costs
7.1 - Benefits and costs of transport services
Introduction
This chapter provides the detailed methods for calculating and reporting the benefits and costs of transport service proposals
Benefits
Transport service proposals will generally provide:
- benefits to new and existing transport service users
- congestion benefits (travel time benefits or, where road capacity is reduced, disbenefits, and vehicle operating cost savings)
- accident reduction benefits
- road maintenance and/or construction savings to the road authority and Land Transport NZ
- other monetised and non-monetised effects, including environmental effects
- national strategic factors.
Monetised and non-monetised effects, including environmental effects, and national strategic factors are discussed in volume 1.
In some cases transport service projects will cause disbenefits to road users and the community during implementation/construction.
Double counting
Care must be taken not to double count benefits or disbenefits.
Examples:
- 'Increased passenger transport patronage' double counts PT user benefits and road user (specifically de-congestion) benefits.
- 'Saved energy' benefits are captured in vehicle operating costs savings and travel time savings.
- 'Discouraging private car use in peak periods' may be mostly captured in road user benefits (de-congestion).
- 'Economies of scale' benefits are mostly captured in user benefits and the inclusion of service options.
- If road improvements (eg median barriers to be installed) are included in the do minimum project costs, then the accident and congestion benefits of the road improvements shall not be claimed as benefits in the transport service options.
Inter-relationship of user benefits
Evaluators should be aware that where a transport service proposal uses road capacity (ie road-based passenger transport services, use of a lane for buses or high occupancy vehicle lanes, etc), the transport service user travel time benefits will be inter-related with road user travel time benefits. It may be desirable to evaluate these effects together using a modelling exercise.
Where the transport service user benefits and road user benefits are calculated separately, care should be taken not to double count the benefits of a proposal for transport service users.
