Transport Notes

53 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9432

The goal of Transport Notes series is dissemination of recent experiences and innovations in the World Bank Group’s transport sector operations.

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Evaluation of Public Sector Contributions to Public-Private Partnership Projects
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
The Bank requires that any public sector contribution to a collaborative effort between the public sector and private enterprises in the transport sector be analyzed and justified in economic terms. This Note will set out the basis for making such an analysis. The general principles underlying this analysis are that: 1) public contributions to public-private partnership (PPP) projects should be justified on the basis of external benefits from the project, compared with the scenario where no public contribution is made. 2) these external benefits are benefits for the wider economy or society which will arise from the project, but which will not be appropriated by the private partner in the contract; 3) by implication, the social welfare gain must be greater than the amount of public money invested multiplied by the cost of public funds. In practice, a range of different reasons can be - and have been - put forward to explain public contributions to PPP projects, including the following: 1) to pay for positive externalities, such as decongestion or improvements in environmental quality; 2) to contribute to the cost of mitigating negative externalities, which private providers often have little incentive to take into account when designing the project; 3) to secure network improvements necessary for economic development or other planning benefits, for which users are in the short term unable to pay. These are considered one by one in Sections 2, 3, and 4.
Valuation of Accident Reduction
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
The objective of this note is to advise on a desired and workable method that can be used to place values on accident reduction. The first section of this note identifies the need to categorize accidents if accidents are to be valued, and suggests a method of categorization. Following, it identifies the components of cost that make up total accident costs, while further sections suggest methods that can be used to value casualty related costs, and incident related costs. Other Sections discuss how accident valuation may vary between modes, and suggest that accident valuations are consistent with those utilized in other Bank projects (e.g. health projects). Final Sections discuss the manner that accident costs vary with time, and the relationship between the valuation and the accident prediction m model. The final Section summarizes the principal recommendations of the note.
Economic Appraisal of Regulatory Reform - Checklist of Issues
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, Peter; Laird, James
The purpose of this brief note is to set out a checklist of issues which need to be considered when assessing the likely economic impact of regulatory reform. There is a great deal of relevant world literature, but a note of caution is appropriate when considering the transferability of experience, and especially outcome, from one country to another. Circumstances alter cases.
Notes on the Economic Evaluation of Transport Projects : Fiscal Impacts
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
The Economic Evaluation Notes are arranged in three groups. The first group (TRN-6 to TRN-10) provides criteria for selection a particular evaluation technique or approach; the second (TRN-11 to TRN-17) addresses the selection of values of various inputs to the evaluation, and the third (TRN-18 to TRN-26) deals with specific problematic issues in economic evaluation. The Notes are preceded by a Framework (TRN-5), that provides the context within which we use economic evaluation in the transport sector. Transport projects have an impact not only on citizens and businesses, but on governments - central, regional and local. Financing and managing the project will place demands on the government's capital and current accounts. Whether these demands are greater or smaller, and how they are phased over time, will depend on the financing mechanisms used and the extent to which the public sector is involved. Alternative approaches for private finance and management are described in the World Bank's 'Public-Private Options' toolkit. In this note, we consider how the appraisal should take the financial effects into account, and how they fit within the appraisal results, as described in the Framework.
Evaluation Implications of Sub-Optimum Pricing
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
The note focuses on three specific ways in which sub-optimal pricing can impact on project benefits: 1) through congestion and overcrowding (Section 1); 2) through overpricing and loss of user benefits (Section 2); and 3) through financial deficits which have implications for the rest of the economy (Section 3). Sections 1-3 of the Note seek to give practical advice on each situation, including how to approach the economic analysis of the situation, and the key implications for project appraisal. If pricing policy is not known with certainty at the time of the appraisal, then alternative pricing policies must form part of the risk and uncertainty analysis. This is covered in Section 4. Conclusions are given in Section 5.
Treatment of Maintenance
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp , John; Laird, James
Maintenance is an often overlooked aspect of appraisal. The effective treatment of maintenance within an appraisal is, however, fundamental to informing the decision regarding the optimum investment strategy. This is because the nature of the maintenance strategy can have direct implications on operating costs and other benefits (e.g. travel time savings). As such the impact of maintenance within an appraisal extends far beyond a simple consideration of its financial cost. The first Section of this Note introduces the importance the correct treatment of maintenance has with respect to an economic appraisal. Following Sections present the primary components of maintenance costs, and introduce the notion of whole life costing and the fact that there is a risk that maintenance may not occur. Next, the Note discusses the issues associated with deriving future maintenance costs, and further discuss the need for inclusion within the appraisal of, first, delays to transport users during maintenance works, and second, of the amount of induced and re-assigned traffic. The final Section presents a summary of the key points that should be borne in mind with respect to the treatment of maintenance within an economic appraisal.
Low Volume Rural Roads
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
The objective of this note is to advise on an appropriate economic appraisal methodology that should be used for the assessment of Low Volume Rural Roads - that is roads upon which less than 200 motorized vehicles per day travel. Section 1 of this note sets out the reasons that Low Volume Rural Roads require a slightly different consideration from other transport projects. Section 2 discusses the approaches to economic evaluation that can be used for low volume rural roads, whilst Section 3 presents the manner that the consumer surplus method can be extended to account for the characteristics of low volume rural roads. Section 4 contains a summary of the main points of the note.
Valuation of Time Savings
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
This note has been drawn from a number of texts including "The Value of Time In Economic Evaluation of Transport Projects" (Gwilliam, 1997), "Values of Travel Time Savings in the UK - Summary and Conclusions" (Mackie et al, 2003), and "The Value of Time in least Developed Countries" (IT Transport, 2002). The conceptual basis for valuing time is discussed in Section 1. Sections 2 and 3 discuss the theoretical basis for valuing work time savings and non-work time savings respectively, while Sections 4 and 5 discuss the value of time savings to buses, and to freight. The treatment of small time savings are presented in Sections 6 and 7. Section 8 sets out the manner that disparities between regions for values of time should be treated within the cost benefit analysis, and the use of standard values of time. Section 9 summarizes the practical methodologies that should be used for the estimation of travel time savings, while Section 10 summarizes the key recommendations of this note.
Treatment of Pedestrian and Non-Motorised Traffic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
Pedestrians and Non-Motorized Traffic vehicles (NMTs) are part of the complete transport scene and in some cases form a very important aspect of that scene. As with the motorized sector of the transport market, this sector will experience positive and negative impacts as a consequence of a transport investment and the sector therefore needs to be included within the appraisal of that investment. Wheeled NMTs (e.g. bicycles and rickshaws) can experience benefits as smoother roads reduce operating costs and journey times, whether that be in an urban or rural environment. New roads and smoother roads can also lead to mode switching from pedestrian modes to either wheeled NMTs or motorized vehicles, giving both journey time and operating cost savings. An increase in the speed of traffic on an upgraded road may result in an increase in the seriousness of road accidents (i.e. an increase in the average number of fatalities per accident), with pedestrians and NMTs being the vulnerable road user groups. In some situations increases in capacity of urban intersections or urban arterials (e.g. construction of an urban motorway or freeway) may reduce the amount of road space available for NMTs thereby imposing costs (both travel time and operating costs) on that road user group. As with motorized transport, pedestrians and NMTs may benefit from a transport investment through operating cost savings, travel time savings, and accident and safety impacts. The inclusion of benefits to pedestrians and NMTs can form a significant proportion of the total scheme benefits for investments such as low volume rural roads.
Notes on the Economic Evaluation of Transport Projects
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Mackie, Peter; Nellthorp, John; Laird, James
In response to many requests for help in the application of both conventional cost benefit analysis in transport and addressing of the newer topics of interest, we have prepared a series of Economic Evaluation Notes that provide guidance on some of issues that have proven more difficult to deal with. The Economic Evaluation Notes are arranged in three groups. The first group (TRN-6 to TRN-10) provides criteria for selection a particular evaluation technique or approach; the second (TRN-11 to TRN-17) addresses the selection of values of various inputs to the evaluation, and the third (TRN-18 to TRN-26) deals with specific problematic issues in economic evaluation. The Notes are preceded by a Framework (TRN-5), that provides the context within which we use economic evaluation in the transport sector. Economic evaluation involves the assessment of the net value of projects and policies. In the transport sector we value projects in terms of their net worth, the difference between the value of their benefits and their costs, both measured so far as is possible in terms of monetary units. This disarmingly simple statement leads to many questions; evaluation by whom, for whom, from what perspective, at what stage. One of the features of transport decisions is that they typically impact on many parties - transport operators, individual transport users, local residents and businesses, land and property owners, national and local taxpayers.