A Comparative Analysis Of Assessment Approaches. Six Cases From Europe

The paper describes and analyses the different approaches to assessment present in six European countries, namely the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy and France. Many comparative studies already exist, pointing out the differences in technicalities and standard values used in the normative frameworks. The contribution of this paper is, instead, to look at the role assigned to assessment procedures in the broader process of decision-making in the transport infrastructure sector. In particular, we look at the role of Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in the process of infrastructure planning . The cases vary from the use of CBA to assess single schemes out of a general public-driven strategy (like in the UK), to centrally planned and assessed infrastructure in which CBA is used essentially to prioritise among a range of concurrent projects (like in Germany or the Nordic countries). Substantial differences also exist among planned approaches, ranging from centrally managed modelling and ranking, to more complex and cooperative approaches. After reviewing each of the six countries and introducing their approach, we define an interpretation scheme. By means of this scheme, we propose a comparison of the six countries, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. This analysis also makes it possible to comment more rationally some of the commonly found pitfalls of evaluation. The paper concludes with some policy indications, proposing three “theoretical” models of the process.