Guide to COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS of investment projects - Ramiri

Table 3.3Estimated Values for casualties avoided (€ 2002 Purchasing Power Parity, factor prices)Country Fatality Severe Injury Slight InjuryAustria 1,685,000 230,100 18,200Belgium 1,603,000 243,200 15,700Bulgaria 573,646 78,951 5,670Cyprus 798,000 105,500 7,700Czech Republic 932,000 125,200 9,100Denmark 1,672,000 206,900 13,200Estonia 630,000 84,400 6,100Finland 1,548,000 205,900 15,400France 1,548,000 216,300 16,200Germany 1,493,000 206,500 16,700Greece 1,069,000 139,700 10,700Hungary 808,000 108,400 7,900Ireland 1,836,000 232,600 17,800Italy 1,493,000 191,900 14,700Latvia 534,000 72,300 5,200Lithuania 575,000 78,500 5,700Luxembourg 2,055,000 320,200 19,300Malta 1,445,000 183,500 13,700Netherlands 1,672,000 221,500 17,900Norway 2,055,000 288,300 20,700Poland 630,000 84,500 6,100Portugal 1,055,000 141,000 9,700Romania 641,083 87,150 6,289Slovakia 699,000 96,400 6,900Slovenia 1,028,000 133,500 9,800Spain 1,302,000 161,800 12,200Sweden 1,576,000 231,300 16,600Switzerland 1,809,000 248,000 19,100United Kingdom 1,617,000 208,900 16,600Source: HEATCO, Deliverable 5, 2004. JASPER for Bulgaria and Romania.Economic impact assessmentTransportation projects may have an impact on the economic structure of the regions. This is acontroversial issue from the theoretical viewpoint and the only conclusions that seem to be universallyacknowledged are that the impacts can be both positive and negative. In the presence of marketdistortions, the increased accessibility of a suburban area or region may result in a competitive advantage,but also in a loss of competitiveness if the industry is less efficient than in the central regions. In this case,the increased accessibility may force the local industry to go out of business. It is therefore necessary toproceed with great caution when assigning these kinds of benefits to the project and, in any case, theyshould be excluded from the calculation of profitability indicators.The routine procedure for evaluating these benefits in terms of an income multiplier/accelerator might beseriously biased. Actually, these multipliers may be applied for any public expenditure. It is thereforenecessary to calculate the differential between the multiplier for the investments in the transportationsector and the multiplier for other sectors. This is a method that does not appear to be advisable, exceptfor some special cases.In any case, if there are no major distortions in the transport-using sectors, i.e. markets are reasonablycompetitive, the use of transport costs and benefits (time savings, externalities, etc.) could be consideredan acceptable approximation of the final economic impact of the transport projects.79