Methods and measures for evaluating benefits of transportation research: synthesis of approaches and case studies.

The aim of this study is to identify and compare methods and measures used in various countries to evaluate benefits from transportation research. The paper highlights some current approaches in use, describes the attributes of an economic evaluation methodology developed and used by the ARRB, and enables comparison with alternative methods in a global context. Results of the study show promising developments such as a toolbox created in the USA consisting of more than 30 research evaluation measures. This paper reports a wide variety of methods and measures at the national and state levels in the USA, most of which evaluate qualitative benefits. When approaches used in other countries were compared to the ARRB methodology, the study found that the ARRB approach provides advantages such as quantitative benefits, analysis of alternative outcome scenarios, accounting for uncertainty, and validation interviews with implementers of research findings. The paper discusses recommendations in the use of methods and measures described in this study. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E220164.