The DRIVE evaluation framework has been developed to take account of the decisions which it needs to inform. European, national and local authorities need to know whether the benefits of RTI (Road Transport Informatics) justify public expenditure. They also need to know whether the distribution of benefits is satisfactory and acceptable to the affected parties and whether legislative interventions are necessary to achieve the benefits. The subject matter for evaluation comprises the individual road transport informatics applications (RTIs) integrated systems which combine different applications (IRTEs) and also integrated implementation scenarios. Some DRIVE consortia are studying applications which are candidates for implementation. However, the full DRIVE research programme includes studies at different levels and from different points of view and the fully developed DRIVE evaluations should take account of these studies. The evaluation proposals described here are for socio-economic evaluations in line with transport evaluation frameworks currently in use in the evaluation is the estimation and measurement of impacts and their attribution to individuals and groups in different areas and at different times. Criteria for evaluation have been derived from the DRIVE objectives of efficiency, safety and environment in the context of general improvements in welfare. These impacts may be incorporated into a cost/benefit framework or into one or more multi-criteria frameworks, namely compatibility analysis, decision analysis and cost-effectiveness frameworks. Some details of the cost/benefit and decision analysis proposals are described in this paper. An approach is suggested for deriving values for use in the cost/benefit analysis.
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