Appraising the Social Costs and Benefits of Road Projects

The social costs and benefits of road transport have traditionally been incorporated partially into economic appraisal, partially into social impact assessments and environmental impact assessments, and sometimes are dealt with in a section identifying the project’s intended beneficiaries. This paper first evaluates current practice in terms of how these types of evaluation are conducted and relate to one another, identifies their shortcomings and strengths in terms of how they affect project outcomes in practice (if at all) and then suggests some possible areas of reform, generally building on work done elsewhere.