Contrasting the recommendations of participatory value evaluation and cost-benefit analysis in the context of urban mobility investments

Niek Mouter*, Paul Koster, Thijs Dekker

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) is a new method to assess the desirability of government projects. In a PVE, individuals select their preferred portfolio of government projects given a constrained public budget. Individuals’ preferences for (the impacts of) government projects can be determined based on these choices. The obtained preferences can be used to rank government projects in terms of their desirability. Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is an alternative appraisal method used to assess the desirability of government projects. CBA establishes the desirability of public projects through analyzing people's trade-offs between their private income and impacts of public projects. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate whether CBA and PVE lead to different policy recommendations in the context of urban mobility investments. We conducted CBAs and a PVE for 16 urban mobility investment projects and find indicative evidence that projects which focus on improving traffic safety and improvements for cyclists/pedestrians rank higher in the PVE, whereas car projects rank higher in the CBA analysis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)54-73
Number of pages20
JournalTransportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
Volume144
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2021

Funding

The first and second author wish to thank the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research for financial support (NWO Responsible Innovation grant – 313-99-333). Moreover, the authors wish to thank the Transport Authority Amsterdam for financing the data collection and the design of the PVE.

FundersFunder number
Transport Authority Amsterdam
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek– 313-99-333

    Keywords

    • Cost benefit analysis
    • Participation
    • Participatory value evaluation
    • Transport appraisal
    • Transport planning

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