Project

Cost Benefit and Economic Impact Appraisal Tool for NSW Australia

EDR Group (now EBP), under subcontract to the Institute of Transport Studies the University of Sydney, developed an economic appraisal methodology and application tool for the NSW state transportation agency, for use in assessing the wider economic benefits of public transportation alternatives.

The approach combined cost-benefit analysis (BCA) and analysis of wider economic benefits. The methodology, originally developed in 2013, was included in the NSW guide for project appraisal.

This approach was subsequently applied in 2015 to evaluate five alternatives for bus rapid transit (BRT) to serve the North Beaches area north of Sydney. Both benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and economic impact analysis (EIA) was conducted to show how the different perspectives affect overall findings. It used EDR Group's TREDIS system for assessing wider economic benefits with the University of Sydney's TRESIS system for assessing the effect of changing demographic, car ownership and urban development patterns. Case Study: Weisbrod, Mulley, and Hensher (2015). Recognizing the complementary contributions of cost-benefit analysis and economic impact analysis to an understanding of the worth of public transport investment: A case study of bus rapid transit in Sydney, Australia.