Population Uncertainty and the Timing of an Urban Transportation Infrastructure Investment

This paper analyzes the impacts of stochastic population changes on the timing of an investment that reduces congestion in an open, monocentric city with fixed boundaries. Congestion pricing cannot be implemented, but a welfare-maximizing planner can buy land and build transportation infrastructure. Under certainty, we derive a rule of thumb to evaluate infrastructure investments that corrects a standard benefit-cost analysis. Under uncertainty, we show that relying on a standard benefit-cost ratio could lead to investing in bad projects, or investing prematurely, or ignoring attractive projects because of population barriers and the impacts of the congestion externality on the land market.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Saphores, Jean-Daniel Maurice
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References;
• Pagination: 20p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benefit cost analysis; City planning; Congestion management systems; Congestion pricing; Infrastructure; Population forecasting; Population movements; Stochastic processes; Stochastic programming; Uncertainty
• Uncontrolled Terms: Transportation infrastructure
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Data and Information Technology; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01046200
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-1764
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 8 2007 6:26PM