Relating cost-benefit analysis results with transport project decisions in the Netherlands

Journal Article (2017)
Author(s)

Jan Anne Annema (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)

Koen Frenken (Universiteit Utrecht)

Carl Koopmans (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, SEO Economic Research)

Maarten Kroesen (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)

Research Group
Transport and Logistics
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12076-016-0175-5 Final published version
More Info
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Publication Year
2017
Language
English
Research Group
Transport and Logistics
Journal title
Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences
Issue number
1
Volume number
10
Pages (from-to)
109-127
Downloads counter
241
Collections
Institutional Repository
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Abstract

This paper relates the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) results of transportation policy proposals in the Netherlands with the decision to implement or abandon the proposal. The aim of this study is to explore the relation between the CBA results and decision-making. Multinomial logit regression models and Latent Class Analysis are used in this paper as the statistical tools to identify associations between CBA results and decisions and to reveal unobservable classes underlying the CBA results and the decisions for projects. Analysis was carried out on 106 Netherlands CBA reports (2000–2012) containing 454 observations. Each observation is a CBA result of a transport project variant. In line with most of the international literature, this study cannot find a significant association between Net Present Values (NPVs) and the variants chosen in political decisions (after controlling for other relevant variables). However, a positive NPV does keep variants ‘pending’, preventing a negative decision.