Incomplete analysis can lead to errors

In a time when the Department for Transport have admitted their analysis of Rail Franchise bids is flawed we are reminded that a faulty method can lead to poor decisions.

One of the most difficult decisions to be made is what transport infrastructure to invest in. There are very many factors to consider, such as forecasts of future demand and external costs and benefits. All of these are difficult to value.

The solution is a full Cost-Benefit Analysis that considers all the private and external costs and values them properly. Only then can a judgement be made and even so substantial margins of error must be considered.

So should we give much credibility to a study by MIT that a third runway at Heathrow is a bad idea?

The MIT study says that, compared to a new Thames Estuary airport (Boris Island), a third runway at Heathrow would cause more early deaths due to pollution. So that's it then, decision made.

However when questioned the authors admitted they had not included any of the following issues in their study:

* The cost of construction at either site
* The impact on local transport at either site
* The impact of extra road traffic too and from any new airport
* The external costs and benefits of either airport

Of course their defence was that they were only looking at health impacts of the two options and that is actually quite reasonable. It represents a contribution to the full cost-benefit analysis and a valuable one at that.

The Guardian reports the study here

Another rail fiasco

The decision to award the West Coast Main Line franchise to First Group in August has already caused a commotion. Virgin had launched a legal challenge claiming 'somebody does not like us at the DfT' (Department for Transport).

Well its not only people in the DfT who find Richard Branson a pain in the arse, but that was not the reason Virgin lost. Officials miscalculated the time value of money and passenger numbers in the 13 year franchise bid. It does make a difference when money flows are received as inflation and interest rates are key elements.

The whole process is now up in the air and will have to be examined again.

For us the process is the issue. How do we assess long term transport projects? Stephen Glaister a former LSE and Imperial professor is a specialist Transport Economist. He looks at the issues in this excellent Guardian article here. (Essential for A2!)

Glaister's article is here

Opportunity cost at work

NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, have the job of deciding if treatments are value for money for the NHS. It's a pretty thankless job. The NHS has a fixed budget and that has to be allocated to the most effective use.

The problem is that new treatments are very expensive and so take a lot of money. The case of a new prostate cancer drug illustrates the dilemma.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and kills 10,000 a year. A new drug that costs £3,000 a month will extend the life, but not cure, those with advanced prostate cancer. This very effective drug will cost a great deal of money, reduce suffering, but save no lives.

NICE have decided that, at the preliminary stage, the drug should not be available on the NHS. The decision is based on opportunity cost. How many more treatments can be provided to other patients instead of giving this drug to prostate cancer patients?

NICE are applying a cost-benefit approach and living with the problem of scarce resources. But that is little comfort to those with prostate cancer.

The BBC cover the story here

Is it really worth it?

There is a proposal to build a faster passenger link between London and Birmingham. It's called HS2 (HS1 was a more ambitious plan for the building of a high speed link to the North of England).

The link will cost £17bn and will take 49 minutes ofF the journey. This is exactly the type of capital project that Cost Benefit Analysis was designed to evaluate.

The problem is that the last major review of UK transport needs, the Eddington Report, said this was the dumbest idea ever and that a vastly more beneficial use of the money would be in removing the many bottlenecks in the transport system. Cost Benefit Analysis gives you a Benefit:Cost ratio (BCR), and Eddington said that such a high speed link would give a BCR of about 1.3, whereas smaller schemes, costing £100 to £1bn could provide BCR of 100+!

It would seem that there is a political will to build this new railway. Perhaps because it gives hope to many that such Keynesian work creation schemes solve unemployment (they don't by the way).

You might consider what the costs and benefits of the HS2 scheme are and how they can be evaluated. This is part of the A2 Transport module.

The BBC covers the story here