AN ECONOMIST'S VIEW OF THE MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES OF GOVERNMENT IN ROAD FUNDING AND THE SETTING OF DESIGN STANDARDS
In funding roads and setting design standards, government tries to meet a number of the community's objectives. Some of these are already embraced in assessment techniques but they tend to be the impacts on individuals, so that assessment is largely a summation over individual impacts. The collective objectives are, in principle, also part of a full economic assessment but, with a few exceptions, it is difficult to measure the importance of these objectives. Nevertheless, they are influential in government decisions, and it may be useful to give more formal attention to them. One problem is that the community's objectives are not always well defined and there may be mixed and even conflicting signals from the major indicators: government statements, government actions, attitude surveys and the revealed preferences of individuals. Prestige is a significant factor in road standards, particularly in the case of national highways. When components of the national highway standards are examined it appears that various forms of prestige and other values have added significantly to the usual objectives taken into account when setting standards (a). (TRRL)
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Corporate Authors:
Bureau of Transport Economics, Australia
Allara Street
Canberra City, A.C.T. 2601, Australia -
Authors:
- Taplin, JHE
- Publication Date: 1980-5
Media Info
- Features: References; Tables;
- Pagination: 10 p.
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Attitudes; Conferences; Decision making; Economic analysis; Federal assistance programs; Federal government; Financing; Highway design; Policy; Standards; Workshops
- Uncontrolled Terms: Federal programs
- ITRD Terms: 8525: Conference; 244: Financing; 183: Government (national); 2855: Highway design; 173: Policy; 187: Specification (standard)
- Subject Areas: Design; Economics; Finance; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; I10: Economics and Administration; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 00329647
- Record Type: Publication
- Source Agency: ARRB
- Files: ITRD, TRIS
- Created Date: May 21 1981 12:00AM