Sustainable Development Analysis and Extended Cost Benefit Analysis – A Promising Approach to Include Social Impacts and External Effects in Appraisal Procedures for Transportation Measures and Infrastructure Investments

Abstract

Traditional evaluation methods have considerable disadvantages. The result of a conventional CBA is based on the total costs and benefits of the investigated alternatives. The distribution of the costs and benefits among different social groups and other social impacts are neither calculated nor taken into account. Existing disparities are not considered and can be increased by a decision based on such an evaluation tool. In Austria, a new set of tools for the assessment of road infrastructure projects was developed which endeavours to overcome the above mentioned problems. This set comprises the eCBA (extended Cost Benefit Analysis) which includes the evaluation of the distribution of costs and benefits among different social groups, indirect third party effects (regional welfare caused by the investment) as well as the impact of induced/suppressed transport demand. The SDA (Sustainable Development Analysis) includes the three dimensions of the holistic term sustainability, social, ecological and economic impacts. It is a special type of a multi-criteria analysis, which makes the term sustainability operable to assess the impact of alternatives. The result of the analysis leads to an indicator for sustainable development which assesses the contribution of each alternative to sustainability on a scale from 0 to 100.