The sensitivity of the economic efficiency of the modernization of railway crossings on the traffic moment

Abstract

The paper brings partial results of the research project focused on the evaluation of the financial and economic efficiency of investment projects in the area of railway constructions. The general methodology of the evaluation of the financial and economic efficiency and risks of the public investment projects is in detail solved in the Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Investment Projects issued by the European Commission in 2014. The evaluation of projects in the transport infrastructure in conditions of the Czech Republic comes out from the mentioned Guide and in detail is solved in the Departmental Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic in 2017. These Departmental Guidelines deal with the evaluation of the key benefits connected with the transport infrastructure. The presented project deals with the detailed evaluation of benefits connected with the increase of the safety and reliability of the railway, which is not included in the Departmental Guidelines. The subject of the paper is to present the results of the research focused on the evaluation of socioeconomic impacts connected with the generation of occurrences on the railway crossings. The objective of the research is the calculation of the marginal values of the traffic model of the railway crossing, where it is possible to expect that the increase of its safety will be efficient from the economic point of view. The key output of the paper is the quantification of impacts of the projects increasing the level of safety of the railway crossings. These impacts include investment costs, costs for the maintenance and repairs and benefits from the increase of the safety on railway crossings. Benefits of projects increasing the safety of railway crossings are represented mainly by the decrease of the number of victims, injuries and material losses appeared following the occurrence on the railway crossing. Results are consequently related to the traffic moment of the railway crossing and there is assessed the value of "costs of the safety" of the railway crossing. Results of the research are presented on the case study of the variant solution of the security of the railway crossing. At the end of the paper, there are described the basic conclusions of the research and the minimal values of the traffic moment of the railway crossing for the assurance of the efficiency of invested resources, separately for regional and state railways are discussed there.