UTSG January 2014 Newcastle LAIRD, MARSDEN AND SHIRES: Evaluating transport and land use under disruption This paper is produced and circulated privately and its inclusion in the conference does not constitute publication. 1 EVALUATING TRANSPORT AND LAND USE INTERVENTIONS IN THE FACE OF DISRUPTION Dr James Laird Senior Research Fellow Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds Professor Greg Marsden Professor of Transport Governance Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds Jeremy Shires Senior Research Fellow Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds SHORT ABSTRACT This paper asks if standard decision-making tools and logics can be applied to disruptive events. In particular we explore whether user costs/benefits are likely to be truly representative of the costs/benefits experienced during periods of disruption, and therefore whether cost benefit analysis methods are appropriate for the assessment of policies/interventions that ameliorate the impacts of disruptions. We conclude that the unique economic characteristics of disruptive events requires a more complete evaluation framework than would usually be employed for the assessment of infrastructure impacts. 1. INTRODUCTION There is a small but growing literature which relates to the study of events which might be viewed as disruptive in some way. Cairns et al. (2002) studied the traffic impacts of over 100 bridge and road closures, both planned and unplanned. Their study found that around 10% of the traffic “disappeared” from the network and that “although the stimulus for change varied, in each case drivers needed to decide what to do when their normal travel patterns were disrupted” (Cairns et al., 2002, p13). Lyons and Chatterjee (2002) studied the impacts of a major fuel shortage in the UK where large numbers of people had to adopt radically different travel patterns to prioritise their fuel use. The Icelandic Ash Cloud event of 2010, which led to the complete closure of large amounts of European air space, was described by Birtchnell and Büscher (2011) as “an eruption of disruptions…[leading to]…systemic cascades of organizations, policies, and infrastructures all going into freefall”. Such events can be considered distinct, possibly low frequency but high impact events. They are however just examples of what must be considered to be a broad spectrum of potentially disruptive events which are faced on a more or less frequent basis. For example, major snow and ice events are somewhat random in their timing across winter and between years but by no means ‘freak’ events. There have only been a handful of attempts to evaluate the costs of disruptions to the transport network caused by such low frequency, but high impact events, as well as the benefits of policies that minimise the impacts of such disruptions. The costs of freeway