Integrated Transportation Land Use Models for Calculations of Wider Economic Benefit in Transport Schemes

A set of suggested methodologies for appraisal of wider economic benefits was published by the United Kingdom Department for Transport, covering a range of welfare and gross domestic product (GDP) benefits including agglomeration economies (increase in productivity resulting from higher densities of employment), more people working (increase in output arising from better transport encouraging more people to work), more productive jobs (increase in productivity identified as resulting from jobs relocating into areas of higher productivity), increased output in imperfectly competitive markets (increase in production expected to result from transport improvements), and increased competition (benefits arising from increased competition as a result of transport improvements and wider benefits from the exchequer as consequences of GDP-related effects). MVA Consultancy and David Simmonds Consultancy were commissioned to study these wider economic impacts of transport interventions using a land use and transport interaction model in combination with the Department for Transport's new method for identifying and quantifying wider economic impacts. The aim of the study was to look at the likely impacts of a range of transport interventions, with a view to helping draw broad conclusions about which interventions, given particular characteristics of the area, are likely to provide an effective contribution to the economy. This paper presents the wider economic benefit methodology, describes the South and West Yorkshire Strategic Model, and reports on the results obtained.