Developing a Multicriteria Model for Use as a Highway Assessment Technique

INTRODUCTION This paper is concerned with the development of a simple multicriteria model for use as a priority assessment technique (PAT) by Local authority transport planners faced with the problem of identifying which of a range of highway investment proposals should be implemented. The project of which it forms a part has involved three main phases: Phase I - a review and critique of PATS developed by British local authorities; Phase II - the application of a representative sample of PATS to a set of six highway schemes, together with an analysis of the different scheme rankings which emerged; Phase III - the construction, based upon the experience of phases I and II together with knowledge of recent developments in multicriteria analysis, of a computer-based PAT. An account of the outcome of the first two phases of the project is given in Simon (1987); more detailed information is available in Simon (1986a,b; 1987)

Modelling and Measuring Reactions to a Road Construction Project Under Uncertiantly and Multi-Dimensions of Impact

INTRODUCTION The construction of a new road can affect the lives of different people in many ways. The ways in which those people evaluate a new road scheme and how this relates to actual changes in physical environmental conditions is clearly important for those involved with the selection, design and management of such projects. For information concerning the views people hold towards a new project to be useful and effective, it should be gathered in a way that relates to specific decision-making objectives. The aim of the project on which this report is based is to develop approaches to the measurement of individuals' evaluations of the constructional and operational consequences of a road scheme which meet these requirements. Two particular research themes form the background to the project. The first is to provide a fuller conceptual analysis of the ways in which people evaluate the good and bad aspects of major new road schemes. In particular, the project sought to examine the role of beliefs and micro-social processes in the formation of the attitudes which people hold and how these relate to their actual experiences of the road scheme. From this perspective an individual's "evaluation" of a road scheme can be theorized at many levels, from the merely physical, such as the annoying effect of noise, to the role of friends and neighbours in influencing the status of different forms of information or the formation of views held. Considering both the physical and social factors underlying evaluation provides greater scope for explaining the variability of reactions to environmental disturbances as well as suggesting more realistic measures for dealing with people's anxieties and concerns. Secondly the project as a whole will provide the necessary time span to examine both residents' prior and posterior weights for a number of environmental attributes related to the road scheme in operation. From this it should be possible to begin to formulate guidance for planners on how to incorporate prior subjective views into project evaluation in a way which allows for known relationships between prior and posterior views. In view of the exploratory nature of the investigation, and the absence of well defined methods for identifying and measuring the different processes and mechanisms of interest, considerable effort was spent in undertaking in depth interviews with residents. These were carried out firstly to establish whether the theoretical concepts initially considered relevant to the study were so in practice and secondly, if they were, how they could be structured within formal survey methods. Accordingly, a substantial part of this report is concerned with the content and issues raised by those interviews

Appraising the Environmental Effects of Road Schemes. A Response to the SACTRA Committee

In this paper, we consider the range of environmental effects of roads and ways of valuing them in money terms. We conclude that environmental effects should be divided into strategic and local. The former, which are largely ignored by current appraisal practice, should be considered as part of an appraisal of the entire programme of road schemes in the course of the consideration of transport strategy. Local effects are dealt with in the Manual of Environmental Appraisal, but the list of effects there and advice on their treatment needs amplification. We consider that techniques for the monetary valuation of environmental effects have improved greatly in recent years, and there remains considerable unexploited potential for the use of stated preference techniques. Nevertheless, we do not think it sensible to suppose that all environmental effects could or should be incorporated in a single Net Present Value calculation; rather we see a potential for the further application of decision support systems able to deal with more disaggregate information

Priority assessment techniques for local transport improvement projects

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:8318.17085F(ESRC/D--01/23/0039)fiche / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Decision theory and strict ranking of probabilities

SIGLELD:3597.98(103) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Decision theory, linear partial information and statistical dominance

SIGLELD:3597.98(132) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo