Article ID: | iaor20031048 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 7D |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 27 |
End Page Number: | 47 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2002 |
Journal: | Transportation Research. Part D, Transport and Environment |
Authors: | Nijkamp Peter, Vreeker Ron, Welle Chris Ter |
Keywords: | decision theory |
Rational decision-making requires an assessment of advantages and disadvantages of choice possibilities, including non-market effects (such as externalities). This also applies to strategic decision-making in the transport sector (including aviation). In the past decades various decision support and evaluation methods have been developed in which a market evaluation played a prominent role. The intrinsic limitations of these approaches were also increasingly recognised. Gradually, a variety of adjusted multi-dimensional methods has been developed over the past years to complement conventional cost–benefit analysis (CBA). These methods aim to investigate and evaluate all relevant impacts of a choice possibility (e.g., project, plan, or programme) on the basis of a multitude of important policy criteria (so-called multicriteria methods). They have a particular relevance in case of non-priced or qualitative effects. There is a clear need for a systematic and polyvalent multicriteria approach to many actual planning issues, such as land use or transportation. This paper offers a new evaluation framework based on a blend of three types of approaches, viz. Regime Analysis, the Saaty method and the Flag Model. All these methods have been developed separately in the past; the paper makes an effort to offer a cohesive framework, which can be used for the evaluation of spatial–economic and environmental–economic policy issues. This new tool is tested by means of a case study on conflicting plans (and policy views) for airport expansion options in the Maastricht area in the southern part of The Netherlands.