Economic impact analysis of highway investment projects

In this study a methodology to present an evaluation framework for computing economic impact analysis of highway improvement projects is developed. Another objective is to study the impact of locally implemented highway improvements on the entire transportation network. Accessibility changes of improved locations are also measured to understand the impact of these individual projects. To illustrate proposed methodology, five major highway construction projects in New Jersey are selected. Capacity improvement due to each project is reflected in the North Jersey Regional Transportation Model Enhanced (NJRTM-E) model by increasing the capacity of the link where the project took place. The NJRTM-E network is run with and without changing the capacity of specific highway links of project locations. These runs present before and after scenarios of improvement projects. The results of this network are processed in the ASSIST-ME/NJCOST software developed for Rutgers Intelligent Transportation System (RITS) Laboratory. Finally benefit-cost ratio of each project is calculated to quantify the economic impact of these projects. The result of this analysis shows that the majority of the benefits are due to reduction in congestion costs. The analysis discovers that locally implemented highway improvement solutions affect the entire transportation network. The analysis also shows that accessibility of the region is increased after the implementation of these projects. Future research should be conducted to explain the reasons for extreme change in volumes away from the improvement location.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Nusrat Jaha