The wider economic impacts of transportation infrastructure: Task Force 3 - Infrastructure investment and financing

This proposal adopts a holistic approach to strategic transport investment by discussing the wider economic impacts (WEIs) analysis method in terms of several dominant and emerging methods. The WEIs analysis goes beyond the effects captured in a standard cost-benefit analysis (CBA). A CBA addresses the market for transport services and infrastructure access but neglects the wider impacts on other markets. These wider impacts usually relate to agglomeration, market power, and the behavioral adaptions of firms and households. The high uncertainty in land use changes indicates that WEIs tend to occur in different forms on multiple spatial scales, varying by place and time. Additionally, some activities, such as education, have no direct market value, but may indirectly contribute to the overall economic output and human capital development in cities and regions. Given that the conventional elasticity methods are not goal oriented, it is important to ensure that the WEIs analysis accounts for the stakeholder-specific costs and benefits. Assuming that it is possible to consider all WEIs through theoretical models, major efforts should focus on establishing and maintaining appropriate methodologies and tools. The social and environmental data needed to address biodiversity issues should also be improved and promoted. Complementary to the WEIs, understanding how the behavior of agents changes in response to the new transport options will help clarify the long-term implications of transportation. This will suggest new strategies (territorial appropriation), approaches/ techniques to feasibility, and ?place-based? interrelations, that is, specific interrelations in places. This last aspect is especially important in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected and will likely change transportation behaviors and transport demand in the dynamic future.