Quantifying Economic Benefits for Rail Infrastructure Projects

This project identifies metrics for measuring the benefit of rail infrastructure projects for key stakeholders. It is important that stakeholders with an interest in community economic development play an active role in the development of the rail network. Many communities have developed goals and visions to establish an economic development program, but they often fail to achieve their goals due to uncertainties during the project selection and planning process. Communities often select a project from a vast pool of ideas with only limited capital available for investment. Selecting the right project at the right time becomes imperative for economic and community development. This process is significantly hampered by limited methods for quantifying the economic benefit to key stakeholders.  Four methodologies are used in this project to determine the most useful tools for quantifying benefit given the availability of data, relevant expertise, and other information.

 
Title: Quantifying Economic Benefits for Rail Infrastructure Projects
Published: December 2014
Report number: cmr15-004
Project number: TR201410

Author(s): Suzanna Long, Ruwen Qin, John Betak, Akhilesh Ojha, and John Myers

Performing organization: Missouri University of Science and Technology, Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering