Comparing cost benefit and multi-criteria analysis: the evaluation of neighbourhoods’ sustainable mobility

The paper focuses on the methodology for assessing Sustainable Mobility (SM) at the neighbourhood scale. For this purpose, two different ex-ante evaluation approaches are considered: Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) and Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). If the MCA is an acknowledged technique for the assessment of sustainability at neighbourhood level, CBA is mainly used for infrastructure and large transformation projects. Besides, the two methodologies present strengths and weaknesses; MCA, for instance, does not evaluate public expense efficiency, but only its effectiveness towards the goals to achieve. On the contrary, CBA appears less effective in managing some intangible benefits (and costs), which are very relevant, especially at this scale, for achieving sustainable mobility and urban quality of life. The joint use of the two methodologies could overcome the weaknesses above mentioned, providing a coherent methodology for assessing both efficiency and effectiveness of policies and projects. The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) analyse the two methodologies when applied at the neighbourhood scale, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of both, (ii) propose an integrated approach, considering both the methodologies, in order to overcome their weaknesses and to reach the goal of assessing SM in the neighbourhoods. The paper is structured into five sections. The Introduction is followed by the description of the MCA (section 2) and the CBA (section 3), with specific emphasis on the SM assessments. Section 4 is dedicated to the investigation of strengths and weaknesses of MCA and CBA, while in section 5 a joint approach is proposed and discussed to evaluate SM at neighbourhood level, in order to overcome some weaknesses of the two methodologies. Follows the framing of further research questions.