Case Study:

Portland, Oregon

Conclusions

Limitations and Development

An acknowledged limitation of this study is that it did not consider reductions in incidents or incident-related delay. While new research is available to assist in valuing unpredicted delay (Small, Noland, Chu, and Lewis 1999), further research and analysis would be required to estimate the incident reduction impacts of the specific freight improvements studied.

The economic benefits in this case were found to be relatively small compared to the direct user benefits. For example, the aggregate increase in personal income over the period of 2000 to 2020 ranged from $9 million to $51 million, compared to annual user benefits of $30 million and $80 million for the same alternatives. Note, however, that user benefits aside from on-the-clock business travel were assumed not to provide any regional economic benefits. Considering commuter time savings as an economic benefit to businesses has been found in other studies using REMI to have significant effects on the overall economic benefits. Ongoing research in this area should help clarify the extent to which benefits to commuter or other personal travel should be considered in estimating regional economic impacts.

While final benefit-cost results were not available at the time of this writing, project sponsors still viewed this analysis as a useful tool as well as one with limitations that must be recognized. Some of the ways in which the benefit-cost analysis proved useful include:

• Making order-of-magnitude comparisons of benefits and costs;
• Identifying which strategies are most cost-effective; and
• Identifying the most important benefit areas (e.g., automobile versus truck travel time savings, accident costs, and economic benefits.)

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