The Wider Economic Benefit of Transport

This paper summarizes and organizes presentations and discussions of the Round Table on Macro-, meso and micro infrastructure planning and assessment tools, that took place at Boston University, on 25 and 26 October 2007. The goal of the meeting was to investigate how recent research on direct and wider economic impacts of investment in transport infrastructure can be used to improve the practice of transport projects appraisal. While the potential importance of “wider benefits” is clear, it is less obvious that attempts to quantify them should be part of all projects appraisals. Timely availibilty of results of simpler approaches might approve the quality of decision-making just as much. And when wider impacts are part of appraisal, their quantification should follow consistent procedures. Policy-oriented research should focus on these procedures, not on producing general results, as the latter are thought to be irrelevant to policy, to the extent they exist.