MetroScan: A quick scan appraisal capability to identify value adding sustainable transport initiatives

Abstract

One of the most important features of comprehensive land use and transport planning is an ability to identify candidate projects and policies that are adding value to the sustainable performance of transport networks and to the economy as a whole. Standard methods of identifying a shortlist of projects to assess are often qualitative in nature and/or influenced by prejudices of elected officials or their advisers without a systematic way of narrowing the many potential options to evaluate, in sufficient detail, a truly value-adding set. There is a case to be made for having a capability to undertake, in a timely manner, a scan of a large number of potentially worthy projects and policies that can offer forecasts of passenger and freight demand, benefit-costs ratios and economy-wide outcomes. Such a framework would then be meaningful in the sense of offering outputs that are similar to those that are the focus of assessments that are typically spread over many months, if not years, on very few projects, which may exclude those which have the greatest merit. This paper introduces MetroScan, a strategic-level transport and land use planning application system that allows for mapping of passenger and freight activity, as well as an endogenous treatment of the location of households and firms. We summarise the analytical framework of MetroScan and show its capability (including the many useful outputs) with a case study for a 25 percent reduction in public transport fares across the entire network.