Public Transport Authorities’ Use of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Practice

Abstract

Given the Swedish national goals for transport and infrastructure, economic efficiency is essential also in public transport operations. In 2003, Ljungberg (2007) sought to answer to which extent PTAs use Cost-Benefit analyses (CBA), a methodology to assess economic efficiency, in their planning of operations and infrastructure. It was found that CBA is seldom used. This paper tries to answer the same question, but for the year 2016. The aim of this paper is to see to what extent PTAs are using CBA today, and investigate whether there are any changes compared to the previous study. A survey was sent to all Swedish PTAs with questions regarding current, previous, and projected future use of CBA. Questions about knowledge of reference materials and why the organization use (or do not use) CBA was asked. The main results are that most PTAs are not using CBA as decision support. For those who does, the method is used mostly for investments in payment systems and major line or traffic changes. The PTAs seem not regard a lack of economic resources a reason for not using CBA. Rather, lack of knowledge and more reliance on other types of decision support are the reasons.