Moving transport from the government department for economy and transport to that of climate change was a clear indication that radical changes in transport roads policy and capital scheme evaluation criteria would follow.
In the 1960s determining whether a road should be built used the CoBA methodology. This compared costs with the benefits achieved through journey time savings, vehicle operating cost savings and accident cost savings (to the NHS). These ‘generalised’ costs considered, in monetary terms, goods and people movement efficiency; paralleling a business process to determine maximum returns (economic benefits/profit)
By the 1980s road building/increasing car usage impacts on noise, air quality, visual intrusion and wildlife were being considered. However there was no monetary value (despite this columnist’s 1982 post-graduate thesis on monetarising these) and so were given secondary importance in highway capital evaluation.
