Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions ...

Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Volume 1
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− Direct Implementation Costs—this accounts only for costs required to
implement the strategy, such as the cost to transit agencies to provide
increased public transportation services or the cost to State highway
departments to time traffic signals. It includes infrastructure construction
costs, capital costs, ongoing maintenance and operations costs, program
administrative costs, etc. It does not include any monetary savings such
as decreased fuel or vehicle operating costs.
− Net Included Costs—this includes direct implementation costs (such as
the increased cost of high technology vehicles over conventional vehicles
or the cost of telecommuting equipment) as well as monetary savings
such as savings from reduced fuel use and reduced vehicle operating
costs. Costs included may vary by source (see Appendix A).
Both direct implementation costs and net included costs are provided for system
efficiency and travel activity strategies because for these strategies, the costs are
primarily borne by the public sector and the savings primarily accrue to
individuals. Only net included costs are provided for vehicle and fuel strategies
because both costs and savings typically accrue to the same entity—the vehicle
owner.
With some exceptions, costs in this report are expressed in present-year real
dollars (as cited in the data source or reference) without any inflation or
discounting. In a few cases, when cost estimates were particularly old (e.g., prior
to year 2000), the consumer price index was applied to inflate values to current
year dollars. When calculating cost effectiveness, future-year operating cost
savings for on-road vehicles (but not for off-road vehicles) were discounted
using a discount rate of seven percent. The cost-effectiveness estimates
computed from the Moving Cooler study data are also based on discounting
future vehicle operating cost savings at a rate of seven percent. Costeffectiveness
estimates from other studies cited in this report that included future
cost savings may have used other discounting assumptions.