A number of highly cited papers by Flyvbjerg and associates have shown that ex-ante infrastructure appraisals tend to be overly optimistic. Ex post evaluations indicate a bias where investment cost is higher and demand lower on average than predicted ex ante. These authors argue that the bias...

This paper presents some experience from using transport models in Swedish planning practice. First we outline three recent examples of planning settings in which transport models have been put to extensive use. For the Swedish ‘national’ transport plan for the period 2010–2021, which was...

Cost overrun of transport projects is one of the most important problems in transport planning. It also makes the result of the cost-benefit analyses uncertain, thus decreasing their usefulness for decision making. In recent years more emphasis has been put on improving cost calculations and...

Using data from Great Britain’s National Passenger Survey 2010 this paper examines the travel time use of rail passengers and their indicative assessment of its utility. The paper explores the impacts of individuals’ socio demographic characteristics, types of activity undertaken and the...

This paper provides a unique insight into aspects of stability and change regarding the travel time use of rail passengers in Great Britain between 2004 and 2010. Empirical evidence is presented on how rail passengers spend their time, how worthwhile they consider their time use to be, the...

The aim of this paper is to describe the relationship between transport buying companies and carriers, with a focus on the transport contracts in Sweden for land based transports. Based on the aim of this study, the following research questions have been defined: How can contracts be...

The paper challenges the existing sustainable transport literature. Most sustainable transport plans focus on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in either one region or country and this neglects two handicaps of strong unilateral action. The first is that climate is a global commons...

We estimate the value of time savings, different cycling environments and additional benefits in cost-benefit analysis of cycling investments. Cyclists’ value of travel time savings turns out to be high, considerably higher than the value of time savings on alternative modes. Cyclists also...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the climate benefit of investments in high speed rail-way lines given uncertainty in future transport demand, technology and power production. To capture the uncertainty of estimated parameters, distributions for the annual traffic emissions reduction...

We explore how benefit-cost efficiency and electoral support affect road investment decisions in Sweden and Norway. In Norway, neither benefits nor costs seem to affect project selection. In Sweden, civil servants’ decisions are strongly affected by projects’ benefit-cost ratios, with a...