engaging multiple actors in large-scale transport...
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Research ArticleEngaging Multiple Actors in Large-Scale TransportInfrastructure Project Appraisal: An Application of MAMCA tothe Case of HS2 High-Speed Rail
Yannick Cornet ,1 Merrill Jones Barradale ,2
Henrik Gudmundsson ,3 and Michael Bruhn Barfod 4
1Department of Planning, Aalborg University, A.C. Meyers Vænge 15, 2450 Copenhagen SV, Denmark2Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), University of Colorado at Boulder, 027 UCB, SEEC Suite N321,Boulder, CO 80309-0027, USA
3CONCITO, Kattesundet 4, 3rd Floor, 1458 Copenhagen K, Denmark4DTU Management Engineering, Produktionstorvet, Bygning 424, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Correspondence should be addressed to Yannick Cornet; [email protected]
Received 30 December 2017; Accepted 19 July 2018; Published 14 August 2018
Academic Editor: Zhi-Chun Li
Copyright © 2018 Yannick Cornet et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Themostwidespread approach to transport appraisal is to combine cost-benefit analysis (CBA)with environmental assessments andpublic consultations. However, large-scale transport projects such as theHS2 high-speed rail system in theUK seem to have pushedthis approach beyond its limits, leading to broad discontentwith the appraisal process.There is a need both to develop newmethodscapable of integrating a wide range of perspectives in a systematic manner and to test these for large-scale projects. Multicriteriaanalysis (MCA) has proven useful in supporting transport decision-making by including a broader set of criteria in the appraisalprocess. Multiactormulticriteria analysis (MAMCA) has extended this approach to includemultiple actors and stakeholders in thejudgment and decision-making process.This paper builds on theMAMCAmethod and demonstrates its practicability andusabilityby applying it to the case of HS2. The purpose of this paper is not to reach a definitive conclusion on the desirability of variousproject options, but to complement existing transport appraisal methods by making different perspectives explicit. For example,the results for this case show contrasting views for different groups of transport professionals: a favorable assessment of HS2 amongtransport planners employed in government, but an unfavorable assessment among transport researchers with a background insustainability. In terms of contribution to the development of data collection methods, this research demonstrates the usefulness ofconducting semistructured interviews in conjunctionwith an online questionnaire for the assessment andweighting processwithinMCA. Because MCA results are expressed in terms of relative desirability of projects, the approach also effectively systematizes theinclusion and assessment of multiple options. Overall, the proposed method enhances the capacity to analyze conflicting views inlarge-scale transport project appraisal processes.
1. Introduction
Decisions to invest in large-scale infrastructure projects suchas high-speed rail (HSR) typically extend beyond traditionaleconomic evaluation using cost-benefit analysis (CBA) toinclude factors such as wider economic effects, regionaldevelopment, long-term environmental impacts, strategicgrowth of certain industries, and even issues of nationalpride. In some cases, the strategic goals may even take prece-dence over the results of conventional economic analysis [1].
However, such factors are not generally compared or weighedin a systematic manner [2, 3]. Due to the size and complexityof HSR projects, expertise regarding project impacts canbecome contested, as various experts from different clustersof specialist knowledge disagree not only on outcomes butalso on assessment methods [4].
CBA itself has been the subject of decades-long criticism,and although various attempts have been made, both intheory and in practice, to broaden the criteria considered, aswell as the stakeholders involved, current transport appraisal
HindawiJournal of Advanced TransportationVolume 2018, Article ID 9267306, 22 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2018/9267306
2 Journal of Advanced Transportation
methods still consist of littlemore thanCBA supplemented byenvironmental assessments and public consultations. Whilesmaller-scale projects may arguably be well served by CBA,larger transport projects tend to push this framework beyondits limits, leading to broad discontent with the process [4].Current transport appraisal methods have been substantiallydiscredited as a result. There is a need both to developmethods capable of integrating awide range of perspectives ina systematic manner and to test these for large-scale projects.
Multicriteria analysis (MCA) has proven useful in sup-porting transport decision-making by including broader setsof criteria in the appraisal process [5]. The purpose of thispaper is to advance the practicability and usability ofMCA forlarge-scale transport project appraisal. Specifically, this paperbuilds on the multiactor multicriteria analysis (MAMCA)method proposed by Macharis et al. [6, 7] and applies itto the case of HS2 Phase I in order to demonstrate itsusefulness in comparing projects across multiple criteria andfrom multiple perspectives. HS2 is a proposed high-speedrailway network connecting major cities in Britain. Phase Iwill connect London and Birmingham in the West Midlands(221 km), and Phase II will extend the network toManchester,Sheffield, and Leeds (for a total of about 530 km of high-speedrail lines). Further details about this case will be provided inSections 3.3.1 and 3.3.2. For additional background onHS2 inthe context of UK transport planning, see [8].
The MAMCA approach of incorporating multiple actorsas well as multiple criteria is applied to the case of HS2Phase I by conducting a series of structured interviews withkey actors using a specially designed MCA questionnaire.Conceived as a decision-making tool for transport appraisal,a full MAMCA process involves in-depth consideration ofproject objectives and options upfront and a final projectrecommendation at the end. Here, this process is abbreviatedby taking certain project objectives and options as givenand stopping short of recommending a specific project inthe final step. One advantage of this abbreviated process isthat it does not require established transport appraisal proce-dures to be completely replaced. Indeed, it can complementexisting methods—in which environmental assessments andpublic comments end up as voluminous appendices (see also[9])—by presenting multiple perspectives side-by-side, thusincreasing the visibility of alternate viewpoints.
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 providesbackground on transport appraisal methods and situates theMAMCA approach within the appraisal literature. Section 3describes the research methods, and Section 4 presents theresults of applying the MAMCA process to the HS2 PhaseI case. Section 5 discusses the implications of these results,and Section 6 concludes the paper with recommendations forfuture research.
2. Transport Appraisal Methods
CBA is a widely applied approach for quantifying varioustypes of project impacts based on national or supranationalguidance (see, for example, [10]). Concerned with efficientallocation of economic resources, CBA aims to aggregateimpacts across space and time by translating all impacts
into discounted monetary terms. This common unit bringsobvious advantages of comparability, both across a range ofimpacts and among project options [11].
As applied in practice, however, CBA assessments havelong been criticized for their failure to adequately addressthe consequences of transport development and for beingtoo narrow in terms of criteria considered [3, 5, 12–16]. CBAis said to favor the pursuit of easily measurable economicobjectives at the expense of more complex and long-termsocial and environmental goals [17]. Finally, CBA methodspose particular challenges for large-scale transport projects:as size increases, so does uncertainty, and therefore the cost oftrying to establish certainty too early in the appraisal process[18].
By contrast, MCA compares projects across multiplecriteria, thereby making it possible to assess impacts thatare impossible or impractical to monetize. At its core, MCAconsists of three fundamental steps: (1) assessing projectperformance against the criteria; (2) weighting the criteria;and (3) combining the assessments and weights to derive anoverall value for each project. The MCA literature proposesa variety of techniques for accomplishing these steps andencompasses a wide range of methods for identifying projectoptions, objectives, criteria, and stakeholders [25–28].
The UK has been at the forefront of MCA developmentsfor transport project assessment [14], and the official UKTransport Analysis Guidance (WebTAG) combines CBA andMCA approaches in a wider decision-support framework[29, 30]. A key outcome of the impact assessment of transportappraisal is the completion of an Appraisal Summary Table,which summarizes all economic, environmental, and socialimpacts, qualitatively and quantitatively [31]. ForHS2 Phase I,the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process, by itself,is said to have generated almost 50,000 pages of material[19, 32]. This input then feeds into the MCA analysis of thestrategic, economic, financial, delivery, and commercial case(see [31] Figure 3 p6).
Another challenge for project appraisal is to incorporatethe concerns of various stakeholders. Although existing Euro-pean legislation prescribes various mechanisms for publicparticipation, for example, via directives on EIA and strategicenvironmental assessment, general experience suggests thatdifferent types of stakeholders are not effectively integratedin practice. For example, EIAs are often found to be subject to“unstructured stakeholder involvement and inefficient publicparticipation” [33].
In transport appraisal, the MAMCA method has beenproposed as a method to formalize the inclusion of variouscompeting stakeholder interests [6, 7, 34]. Based on thestrategic stakeholder management literature, a stakeholder isdefined as any individual or group (organized or not) who isable to affect or is affected by (or both) the ultimate outcomeof a particular issue [6, 35]. This paper follows and furtherdevelops the MAMCA approach by focusing on a subsetof stakeholders and proposing specific appraisal steps forsoliciting a broad range of perspectives within that subset.The stakeholder groups of interest in this paper includetransport planners and professionals broadly defined toincorporate expertise in the diverse fields of transportation,
Journal of Advanced Transportation 3
Table 1: Appraisal process. Novelty: ✓ = original research; (✓) = known method, novelty in implementation.
Stage Appraisal step Conducted how By whom Novel In section
Questionnaire Design
Define objectives Predetermined (1) 3.3.1Define list of project options Predetermined (mostly) (2) + research team 3.3.2Define list of assessment criteria Predetermined (3) 3.3.3
Define stakeholder groups of interest Develop questions to elicitrespondent traits Research team ✓ 3.3.4
Response Elicitation
Select criteria from list Binary/Mark any number Survey respondents ✓ 3.4.1Weight selected criteria Direct weighting Survey respondents (✓) 3.4.2
Assess project performance for selectedcriteria
Pairwise comparison ofprojects (multiplicativeAHP) for each criterion
Survey respondents (✓) 3.4.3
Data Analysis
Average performance assessments acrossall respondents for each criterion
Geometric mean of allassessments (multiplicativeAHP) for each criterion
Research team 4.1
Assign respondents to stakeholder groups Decision rules based onrespondent traits Research team ✓ 4.2
Calculate criteria weights for eachstakeholder group
Arithmetic mean of groupmembers’ weights for eachrobust criterion
Research team 4.3
Calculate project preferences for eachstakeholder group based on own criteriaweights and all-respondent performanceassessments
Multiplicative aggregation Research team 4.4
Sources: (1) HS2 Ltd [19]; (2) HSR along M1 motorway: HS2 Ltd [20]; WCML upgrade: Atkins and HS2 Ltd [21, 22]; (3) Barradale and Cornet [23]
energy, economics, and environmental issues as they relateto HS2. These actors thus represent a multitude of relevantperspectives, even as they cannot be seen to represent allstakeholders. We then take these actors through an actualappraisal process in order to demonstrate the feasibility ofsoliciting, aggregating, and presenting multiple perspectives.
3. Methods
3.1. Data Collection. Data collection aimed for a balancebetween the two extremes of gathering all respondents ina single workshop (maximum interaction) and conductingan online survey (no interaction). Specifically, we conductedin-person interviews, combining semistructured discussionwith completion of a structured electronic questionnaire.This had the advantage of enabling the interviewer to provideclarification of the steps, criteria, scales, and other com-plexities (similar to a workshop setting), thereby enhancingdata quality. In contrast to a workshop setting, however,there was no interaction among respondents. This may havedisadvantages if the assessment goals are exploratory (e.g.,defining objectives), but may have advantages if the goal is toensure representation of a variety of perspectives (e.g., avoid-ing group-think; providing confidentiality which encouragesrespondents to share views more fully with interviewer).The semistructured interview format, combined with thestructured online tool, provides a rich source of qualitativedata that serve to improve the process and reach a fullerunderstanding of the case.
The target population for interviews consisted of trans-port planners and experts, both practitioners and researchers,
employed in all sectors (public, private, non-profit, andacademic). In order to test the approach, we were primarilyinterested in transport professionals in the UK, or in somecases from other parts of Europe if they were involved withHS2.
To identify potential respondents, we relied on threesources: (1) a long list of attendees from private and govern-mental institutions present at a large seminar on appraisalmethods at University College London held in 2014; (2) theofficial parliamentary reports listing all petitioners with theirevidence; and (3) our own network of transport planners andacademics.
In all, we interviewed ca. 40 transport professionals, 33of whom filled in the questionnaire. Even if this does notrepresent a perfect sample of all relevant transport profes-sionals, it comprises a substantial number of professionalswho represent a broad diversity of expertise. Moreover,this research incorporates their views in a transparent andsystematic manner. Although the official appraisal of HS2Phase I solicited the input of many professionals and experts,the process by which this input was incorporated was quiteidiosyncratic and opaque.
3.2. Overview of Appraisal Steps and Survey Process. Thetwelve steps of the appraisal process we defined are compa-rable both to von Winterfeldt and Edwards’s [36] eight-stepMCA process and toMacharis et al.’s [6] seven-stepMAMCAprocess. The individual appraisal steps (see Table 1) are bestdescribed by grouping them in terms of three stages of thesurvey process:
4 Journal of Advanced Transportation
Table 2: Summary of the three project options assessed in the survey.
HS2 Phase I Alternative 1: West Coast MainLine upgrade
Alternative 2: High-Speed Railalong M1 motorway
Base investment cost ca. m20 billion(m19.4-21.4bn)
ca. m3 billion(m2.6-3.8bn)
ca. m22 billion(m2.2bn more than HS2 Phase I)
Journey time betweenLondon Euston andBirmingham
49 minutes 73 minutes(currently: 85 minutes) 55 minutes
Maximum speed 250 mph (=400 kph) 140 mph (=225 kph)(currently: 125mph or 200kph)
186 mph (=300 kph)(same as HS1 between London andParis)
Key features
(i) New dedicated line from Londonto Birmingham with no stations inbetween(ii) Route avoids major populationcentres by running mostly throughrural areas(iii) Route passes through ChilternsArea of Outstanding Natural Beauty(AONB)
(i) Line passes through and servesmany population centres betweenLondon and Birmingham(ii) Requiring very little additionalland(iii) Some disruption of existingservice expected during upgrade
(i) New dedicated line from Londonto Birmingham with no stations inbetween(ii) Route passes through or nearmany population centres(iii) Avoids Chilterns Area ofOutstanding Natural Beauty(AONB)
(i) appraisal steps conducted as part of questionnairedesign (defining objectives, project options, and cri-teria; developing questions to identify stakeholdergroups);
(ii) appraisal steps conducted through response elicitation(selecting and weighting criteria; assessing projectperformance);
(iii) appraisal steps conducted during data analysis (iden-tifying stakeholder groups; calculating project prefer-ences for each stakeholder group).
3.3. Questionnaire Design. Several of the initial appraisalsteps were conducted and defined during the process ofdesigning the questionnaire.
3.3.1. Project Objectives. Objectives should be defined beforeprojects are assessed. A statement of objectives clarifies whatthe decision is trying to achieve; it also frames the problemat hand, thereby limiting the options that may be consid-ered. The defining of objectives therefore has considerableinfluence on subsequent appraisal steps. In a full MAMCAprocess, defining the problem and brainstorming alternatives(options generation) are an important part of the reflexiveprocess.
In the real world of transport planning, however, objec-tives are typically set by governments, and not always intransparent ways. In the case of HS2, the objectives laid outby the UK government are as follows (see [19] section 3.1):
(i) provide sufficient capacity tomeet long-term demandand to improve resilience and reliability across thenetwork;
(ii) improve connectivity by delivering better journeytimes and making travel easier.
These objectives were reproduced “as is” in the firstsection of the questionnaire. Limiting the scope in this way
required respondents to accept the validity of the statedobjectives and arguably raises concerns about addressingwider sustainability issues (see, e.g., [37]). However, conduct-ing a full MAMCA process was beyond the scope of thisresearch.
3.3.2. Project Options. During the early stages of the HS2Phase I appraisal process, a number of alternatives wereproposed and assessed. In the questionnaire, we selectedtwo rail proposals for further analysis and comparison, inaddition to the officially adopted HS2 project. One is analternative high-speed rail alignment following an existingtransport corridor (theM1motorway alignment, seeHS2 Ltd,2012).The other is an extended upgrade to the existing West-Coast Main Line. This upgrade would tackle “bottlenecks”and provide additional capacity mainly through a programof train lengthening, increased frequency, modernization ofjunction designs, and the provision of additional tracks insome locations [21, 22]. Having decided to adopt the officialHS2 goals for our own appraisal process, we selected theseparticular proposals because they, too, accept the objectives ofHS2 as given and seek to meet those same objectives throughalternative projects. Furthermore, both are rail projects,which aids the comparison with HS2. Finally, both alternativeproposals were sufficiently well developed for information tobe available on the potential impacts of each.
The questionnaire displayed a summary table with keyfeatures of each project (see Table 2), as well as a mapshowing the three alignments (see Figure 1). More detaileddescriptions of the three project options were available byclicking a button in the online survey (see Table 3), ordirectly from the interviewer. Attention was given to writingthe descriptions as impartially as possible to avoid inferringpotential positive or negative impacts.
The questionnaire gave respondents the possibility ofadding a fourth project option of their choice. A number ofrespondents chose to do so, in which case the questionnaire
Journal of Advanced Transportation 5
HS2 Phase 1as proposed
High Speed Railalong M1 motorway
Existing WestCoast Main Line
Chilterns Area ofOutstanding Natural
Beauty (AONB)
Figure 1: Alignment of the three project options assessed in the survey. Map data: Google.
incorporated this additional option into subsequent perfor-mance assessment questions. Several respondents added a“Do minimum” option, some because they saw a need toestablish a neutral baseline, others because they contestedthe stated goals of increased capacity and speed (arguing,for example, that accessibility, affordability, and quality ofjourney experience on the rest of the network were moreimportant in the UK context). A few others contestedthe geographical scope and chose to add investment inurban mobility (centered around improving public transportand cycling facilities) as a more realistic and cost-effectivealternative for improving mobility and for reducing carbonemissions. On the one hand, allowing the inclusion of suchoptions raises comparability challenges, since these are notassessed by all respondents; on the other hand, doing soprovides an opportunity to record the feedback and proceedwith the survey.
3.3.3. Assessment Criteria. The criteria weighting processdescribed below (Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2) is based on a list ofassessment criteria developed by Barradale and Cornet [23]in a prior, preparatory stage of this research. Using the criterialisted in the Transport Analysis Guidance (WebTAG) by theUK government [29] and the impacts assessed in the HS2appraisal documents [32, 38] as a starting point, Barradaleand Cornet [23] consulted a wide range of experts, adoptingan iterative, mixed deductive/inductive approach to producea comprehensive and coherent list of criteria for comparingHS2 and its alternatives.
In addition to direct project impacts (those costs andbenefits typically considered in transport appraisal, includingthe official appraisal of HS2 Phase I), this list includes broaderimpacts on society and the environment. The final list of 28assessment criteria is presented in Table 4, with completedescriptions in Table 5. The purpose of this comprehensivelist is to have a reference point for the participants to
consider in their criteria selection. They might not choose toevaluate all criteria, but at least they are given the possibilityof considering a wide range of issues, thus addressing theproblem of omission bias.
3.3.4. Questions to Identify Stakeholder Groups. Stakeholdergroups may be selected and defined in various ways, depend-ing in part on the goal of analysis. As mentioned above,the overall subset of stakeholders targeted in this paper wastransport planners and experts, where expertise is broadlydefined to include engagement with a wide range of issuesrelating to HS2. This larger group was then subdivided intosmaller groups to highlight the diversity of perspectives.
A key objective in this particular application of theMAMCA approach to the case of HS2 Phase I was thedesignation of a stakeholder group to represent a “sustain-ability viewpoint” (see [39] for details on the concept ofsustainability viewpoint and various ways to define it). Here,this stakeholder group consists of transport professionalswith “sustainability expertise” (defined in Section 4.3).
Regardless of focus, stakeholder identification must bebased on clearly defined criteria that are independent ofappraisal process and outcome. For the purpose of identifyingstakeholder groups in this paper, respondents were askedquestions about their professional background and experi-ence:
(i) educational background, including transport andenvironmental studies,
(ii) sector of employment,(iii) type of involvement with HS2/transport infrastruc-
ture,(iv) areas of focus/analysis within transport planning and
appraisal (e.g., social and environmental impacts).
6 Journal of Advanced TransportationTa
ble3:Projectd
escriptio
nsforH
S2Ph
aseI
andtwoalternatives
(WCM
Lup
gradea
ndHighSpeedRa
ilalon
gM1m
otorway),provided
intheq
uestion
naire
asadditio
nalinformationfor
respon
dents.
HS2
PhaseI
HS2
isan
ewhigh
-speed
passengerrailway
networkthathasb
eenprop
osed
bytheG
overnm
enttoconn
ectm
ajor
citie
sinBritain.P
haseI
will
conn
ectL
ondo
nandBirm
ingh
amin
theW
estM
idland
s(221k
m),andPh
aseIIw
ould
extend
then
etwo
rkto
Manchester(an
additio
nal
150km
)and
Leeds(an
additio
nal185
km).Con
structio
nof
PhaseI
isschedu
ledto
beginin
2017
with
anindicatedop
eningdateof
2026,
whilecompletionof
thee
ntire
networkisprop
osed
for2
033.
Theo
verallaim
ofHS2
isto
vastlyim
proveinter-urban
railservicethrou
ghincreasedcapacityandim
proved
conn
ectiv
itybetweenLo
ndon
,theM
idland
s,andtheN
orth.P
hase
Iwill
releasec
apacity
onthee
xisting
railnetworkbetweenLo
ndon
,Birm
ingh
amandtheW
est
Midland
s(WestC
oastMainLine).Th
ismight
enableWCM
Lto
focusm
ores
pecificallyon
freight
andregion
alpassengerservices.
With
amaxim
umspeedof
250mph
,trainsa
reexpected
totravelbetweenLo
ndon
andBirm
ingh
amin
49minutes.
MorethanhalftheP
hase
I rou
tewill
bein
cutting
sortun
nels,
with
abou
t90km
partially
ortotally
hidd
ento
redu
cevisualim
pactsa
ndno
ise.For
exam
ple,in
theC
hilternsA
reao
fOutsta
ndingNaturalBe
auty(A
ONB)
over
18km
ofther
outewill
bein
tunn
els,greentunn
els
orcutting
s,with
justover
2km
ofthelineo
nthes
urface.
HS2
isap
ubliclyfund
edproject.Th
etotalbu
dgetforP
hase
Iism
21.4billion
(m15.6billion
projectedcost,
plus
m5.8billion
contingency).Th
etotalbud
getfor
PhaseIIism
21.2billion
(m12.5billion
projectedcost,
plus
m8.76
billion
contingency).Th
erew
illalso
bem7.5billion
spento
nnewrolling
stock.
Form
oreinformationseeh
ttps://w
ww.gov.u
k/government/c
ollections/th
e-str
ategic-case-for-hs2
WCM
Lup
grad
e
Trainserviceb
etwe
enLo
ndon
andBirm
ingh
amiscurrently
provided
bytheW
estC
oastMainLine
(WCM
L).Th
issectionof
theW
CMLisa
very
busy
four-tr
ackrailw
aythatcatersprim
arily
toshortcom
muter
journeys
betweenneighb
ourin
gcities
alon
gther
oute(W
atford,M
ilton
Keyn
es,N
ortham
pton
,Rug
by,and
Coventry).Th
epropo
sedup
gradeisa
imed
atmakingtheW
CMLmores
uitablefor
long
-distance
travel.
Thes
pecific
WCM
Lup
grade a
lternativec
onsid
ered
here
consistso
f(1)increasingpassengerc
apacity
onthee
xisting
raillin
ethrou
ghap
rogram
meo
f(a)
leng
theningthetrainsthatp
rovide
intercity
and
subu
rban
services;(b)
increasin
gfre
quency
(upto
16trains
perh
ouro
nthefastlines);and(c)switching
firstclasscoach
tosta
ndardclassin
ordertoincrease
then
umbero
fseatsavailable;
(2)increasingtrainspeedon
thee
xisting
raillin
ethrou
ghinfrastructureim
provem
entsto
(a)tackleb
ottlenecks;(b)m
odernise
junctio
ns;
and(c)p
rovide
additio
naltracksincertainlocatio
ns.
Thisup
gradeise
xpectedto
increase
maxim
umtrainspeedto
140mph
(from
125mph
today)
andredu
cetraveltim
ebetwe
enLo
ndon
and
Birm
ingh
amto
73minutes
(from
85minutestoday).Th
israilpackageise
xpectedto
costin
ther
egionof
m2.6billion
,but
couldbe
expand
edincrem
entally
(e.g.,u
pgrading
theC
hiltern
line).
Form
oreinformationsee
https://w
ww.gov.u
k/government/p
ublications/high-speed-rail-str
ategic-alternatives-study-upd
ate-follo
wing-consultatio
nan
dhttps://w
ww.gov.u
k/government/p
ublications/hs2-phase-one-enviro
nmental-statement-v
olum
e-5-alternatives-reportand
https://w
ww.gov.u
k/government/c
ollections/th
e-str
ategic-case-for-hs2
HighSp
eedRa
ilalon
gM1
motorwa
y
Thisalternativeh
igh-speedrailroutew
ould
follo
wexistingmotorways.Th
isalignm
entw
ould
follo
wthep
ropo
sedHS2
routefrom
Eusto
nto
Old
Oak
Com
mon
,where
itwo
uldthen
head
duen
orth
follo
wingtheM
1and
M45/A
45towards
Birm
ingh
am.
Thea
lignm
entalong
theM
1corrid
orthroug
hLu
tonistheo
nlyviablerouteb
etwe
enLo
ndon
andtheW
estM
idland
sthatcan
avoidthe
Chilterns
Areao
fNaturalBe
auty(A
ONB).Th
isalternativew
ould
thereforeh
avelow
erim
pactso
nnatio
nally
protectedecologicalsites,
ancientw
oodlands
andBiod
iversityAc
tionPlan
habitats.
Follo
wingthec
urvatureof
theM
1motorway
requ
ireslow
erspeed.Th
emaxim
umspeedwo
uldbe
186mph
,which
isthes
amea
sHS1
betweenLo
ndon
andParis
.Traveltim
ebetwe
enLo
ndon
andBirm
ingh
amon
thisroutew
ould
be55
minutes.
Byfollo
wingtheM
1,thisroutew
ould
encoun
terseverallargep
opulationcentres,inclu
ding
Hem
elHem
pstead,M
ilton
Keyn
es,and
Luton
(acombinedpo
pulatio
nof
480,00
0peop
le).In
ordertoredu
cetheimpacton
commun
ities,thisrou
teinvolves
substantialsectio
nsof
tunn
ellin
g,thus
increasin
gthep
roject’scostandcomplexity.L
ower
speedwo
uldredu
ceno
ise,thu
salso
helpingto
redu
cetheimpacton
commun
ities.Still,thisalternativeinvolvesd
emolition
ofnu
merou
sdwe
lling
s.Th
ecosto
fcon
structin
gthisroutew
ould
bem2.2billion
morethanforthe
prop
osed
HS2
route.
Form
oreinformation,
see
https://w
ww.gov.u
k/government/p
ublications/review-of-h
s2-lo
ndon
-to-w
est-m
idland
s-route-selection-and-speed
Journal of Advanced Transportation 7
Table 4: List of 28 assessment criteria for HS2 Phase I [23].
Direct project impacts(internal costs & benefits)
Indirect societal impacts(externalities - people)
Environmental impacts(externalities - planet)
(1) Journey cost & affordability (11) Accessibility (20) Agriculture, forestry & soils(2) Journey experience (12) Accidents & safety (21) Air quality(3) Journey reliability & system resilience (13) Community disruption & severance; blight (22) Biodiversity & nature(4) Journey time (14) Equity & distributional effects (23) Carbon footprint(5) Project costs (15) Land use & urban development (24) Material footprint(6) Project delivery risks (16) Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage (25) Noise & vibration(7) Rail capacity for freight (17) Prestige & image (26) Solid waste & disposal(8) Rail capacity for passengers (18) Rail industry growth & innovation (27) Water & land contamination(9) Traffic & transport disruption (19) Regional economic development & regeneration (28) Water resources & flood risk(10) Transport integration & connectivity
3.4. Response Elicitation. The next three appraisal steps wereconducted through the elicitation of responses in the onlinequestionnaire.
3.4.1. Criteria Selection. The questionnaire displayed the listof 28 criteria shown in Table 4, with more detailed definitionsavailable to respondents by clicking a button in the onlinesurvey (see Table 5) or asking the interviewer for clarification.Respondents were given the opportunity to add (up to 3)additional criteria, in case they felt some were missing.Respondents were also given the possibility of adding open-ended comments. This qualitative data was used in earlierstages of the research to refine the criteria list (see [23]).
Respondents were then asked to select criteria fromthe full list of 28 (plus any the respondent had added).The software was set up to require at least 3 but couldaccommodate any number up to 28 (plus any added criteria).From an analysis perspective, more is better; from a userperspective, fewer is better, as each additional criterionlengthens the assessment process. In balancing the benefitsof more versus fewer criteria, we suggested that respondentsselect “at minimum 6.” In practice, respondents rarely pickedmore than 9.
Some respondents raised a question about the appropriatebasis for criteria selection and whether it should be contextualrelevance (i.e., which criteria are most relevant in a particularcase for comparing specific projects?) or normative preference(i.e., which impacts should we care about most?). Somerespondents considered this to be a critical distinction: forexample, one respondent rated biodiversity and carbon foot-print very highly in principle, yet did not deem it necessary toselect them in this case, because he considered the marginaldifferences among the three projects to be too small to matter.
We chose to circumvent the issue through careful phras-ing of the question to avoid mentioning either “relevance”or “importance”: the questionnaire asked respondents whichcriteria they thought “should be used for assessing the prosand cons of HS2 Phase I and its alternatives [emphasisadded].” In other words, respondents selected criteria onwhatever basis they deemed appropriate. Most respondentswere content with this lack of specificity, perhaps intuitivelyconflating relevance and importance in their selection.
3.4.2. Criteria Weighting. In the next step, respondents wereasked to weight the criteria by rating “the relative importanceof each criterion” they had selected. Respondents were foundto be comfortable with using sliders, which provided an easy-to-understand and consolidated visual representation of theirpreferences (see Figure 2).
3.4.3. Performance Assessment. Methods for assessing projectperformance should address issues of accuracy and objectiv-ity. Accuracy involves both the assessor (whose judgment issolicited) and the assessment process (how the judgment iselicited). Determining who should conduct the assessmentinvolves a value judgment about who is sufficiently qualifiedto be able to make an accurate assessment of project perfor-mance.
On this issue we made a key methodological choiceto ask the same people who had selected and weightedcriteria in the previous step to also conduct the assessments.Procedurally this involved each respondent assessing projectperformance for each criterion he/she had selected. Thisapproach is unusual: more commonly, the weighting ofcriteria is decoupled from the assessment of project perfor-mance, with the latter performed by a single expert, or smallgroup of them, using available knowledge and forecasts [34].However, reliance on this conventional notion of expertiseinvolving few individuals may introduce overconfidence biaswith respect to those criteria that transport planners areaccustomed to assessing, such as capacity and traffic impacts,at the expense of wider economic, social, and environmentalimpacts, with which they may be less familiar.
Since our interviews specifically targeted transport pro-fessionals who were familiar with HS2, we felt it was rea-sonable to assume a generally sufficient level of competenceamong respondents. We also assumed that those respondentswho selected particular criteria were also best qualified tomake an expert judgment about them. Even should this notalways be the case, the phrasing of our question about projectperformance explicitly asked respondents to “evaluate to thebest of your ability, however feel free to skip directly to thenext question if you have no opinion.” One improvementcould be to ask respondents to rate their level of confidencein their own assessments, but we perceived it to be more
8 Journal of Advanced Transportation
Table5:Fu
lldescrip
tions
ofthe2
8assessmentcriteriaforH
S2Ph
aseI,providedin
theq
uestion
naire
asadditio
nalinformationforrespo
ndents.
Criterion
Descriptio
nDire
ctprojectimpa
cts(in
ternalcosts
&benefits)
(1)Jou
rney
cost&
affordability
Journeycost(propo
sedor
expected)isthe
pricep
assengersp
ayfora
trip.Inthiscontext,affordabilityisdefin
ednarrow
lyin
term
sof
whether
thisparticularm
eans
oftra
nsportisexpected
tobe
affordabletowo
uld-be
users.Ifyour
concernisabou
twhatm
ight
happ
ento
otherm
eans
oftransport,whether
currently
inexistence
orprop
osed
forthe
future,asa
resultof
thisprojectb
eing
realized,pleaser
efer
to“Equ
ityanddistr
ibutionaleffects.”
(2)Jou
rney
experie
nce
Journeyexperie
nceisa
measure
ofther
ealand
perceivedph
ysicalandsocialenvironm
entexp
erienced
whiletravellin
g.Itinclu
desthe
overallqualityof
facilitiesa
ndinfrastructure(statio
nsandrolling
stock),as
wellas
moretangiblefactorslik
eavailabilityof
seats,comfort,
provision
ofrelevant
inform
ation,
safety
&security,crow
dedn
essa
ndotherstre
ssfactors.Moreover,experie
nceo
ftim
easp
erceived
byusersincludese
ntertainmentand
scenery.
(3)Jou
rney
reliability&
syste
mresilience
Journeyreliabilityrefersto
varia
bilityin
journeytim
ethatind
ividualsareu
nabletopredictd
ueto
recurringevents(e.g.,c
ongestion
)or
non-recurringevents(e.g.,a
ccidents)
.For
publictransportthisisu
suallymeasuredas
thes
tand
arddeviationof
latenessdividedby
average
lateness.R
esilience
refersto
thea
bilityof
atranspo
rtsyste
mor
networkto
recoverfrom
disrup
tions
caused
bynaturaldisa
stersor
human
factors.Re
siliencea
ndreliabilityarer
elated
inthatwhenresilienceish
ighitisreflected
inreliabilityas
well.
(4)Jou
rney
time
Journeytim
e isd
efinedas
traveltim
efrom
statio
nof
origin
tosta
tionof
destinatio
n.High-speedrailisaimed
atredu
cing
traveltim
e.
(5)P
rojectcosts
Totalcosto
fprojectto
taxpayers,comprising
both
upfro
ntandon
goingcosts
.Upfront
capitalinvestm
entincludesc
onstr
uctio
ncosts
from
mainwo
rkcontracts(sta
tions,tracks,rolling
stock,pow
er,and
signalling
),land
andprop
ertycosts
(acquisitionandcompensation),
administrativ
ecosts(design,
managem
ent,consultatio
n).O
ngoing
costs
inclu
detrainandsta
tionop
erations,m
aintenance,and
renewal
costs
.
(6)P
rojectdeliveryris
ks
Uncertaintie
sduringplanning
andconstructio
nsta
gesregarding
finalprojecto
utcome.Th
eser
isksinclude
costoverruns,con
structio
ndelays,and
underperform
ance
ofnewtechno
logy.R
isksc
anbe
mitigatedby
consultin
gkeyexpertsa
ndsta
keho
lderse
arlyin
thep
rocess
andby
cond
uctin
gpilotstudies.R
isksc
anbe
exacerbatedwhencostestim
ates
ares
ubjectto
optim
ismbias
(und
erestim
ation,whether
intentionaloru
nintentio
nal).
(7)R
ailcapacity
forfreight
Any
increase
inrailcapacitywill
also
increase
thec
apacity
availablefor
freight,w
hether
directlythroug
hthec
onstr
uctio
nof
newtracks
availabletofre
ight
andpassengers,orind
irectlythroug
hthec
onstr
uctio
nof
newpassengerlines,thu
sfreeing
uptracks
thatwe
repreviously
shared
with
passengers.A
nincrease
inrailcapacityavailablefor
freight
transportw
ould
beableto
meetgrowingdemandforfreight
transportand
/orreducer
ailcostsforfreight
users.Th
isin
turn
couldresultin
shiftingfre
ight
from
roadstorail.Ifyour
interestin
rail
capacityisprim
arily
relatedto
mod
alshift
andther
esultin
gpo
ssibility
ofredu
cing
CO2e
missions,pleaser
efer
to“C
arbo
nfootprint.”
Ifyour
interestismoreg
enerallyin
increasin
gcapacityandredu
cing
costs
forfreight
users,please
selectthiscriterio
n.
(8)R
ailcapacity
for
passengers
Passengerc
apacity
isthetotalnu
mbero
fpeoplea
means
oftransportisa
bletotransfe
rinag
iven
perio
d(m
easuredfore
xamplein
person
-km
perd
ay).Increasin
gpassengerc
apacity
isparticularlyrelevant
whentraveldemandisexpected
togrow
andpo
licym
akersw
ant
tosatisfy
thatdemand.One
way
ofincreasin
gpassengerc
apacity
isto
increase
frequ
ency
ofservice,which
isalso
madep
ossib
leby
increasin
gtrainspeed.Other
metho
dsof
increasin
gcapacityinclu
deleng
theningtrains
orbu
ildingnewtracks/rou
tes.In
additio
nto
meetin
ggrow
ingtraveldemand,increasin
gpassenger
capacitymay
also
encouragea
shift
from
otherm
odes
ofpassengertranspo
rt(air,
car)
torail.Ifyour
interestin
railcapacityisprim
arily
relatedto
mod
alshift
andther
esultin
gpo
ssibilityof
redu
cing
CO2em
issions,pleaser
efer
to“C
arbo
nfootprint.”
Ifyour
interestin
railcapacityismored
irectlyabou
tmeetin
gpassengern
eeds
fortravel,please
selectthiscriterio
n.
Journal of Advanced Transportation 9
Table5:Con
tinued.
Criterion
Descriptio
n
(9)T
raffic&
transport
disrup
tion
Welfare
impactso
nrailusersc
ausedby
transportd
isrup
tiondu
ringprojectcon
structio
n(e.g.,W
CMLup
grade)
and/or
onno
n-railusers
caused
bytraffi
ccon
gestion
from
constructio
ntrucks
(HS2).Th
isisprim
arily
acon
structio
n-ph
aseimpact.Ifyou
rinterestisin
longer-te
rmim
pactso
ntraffi
cpatternsa
ndotherinfrastr
uctureconfl
icts,
please
referto“C
ommun
ityseverance”
and/or
“Landuse&
urban
planning
.”Ifyour
interestin
traffi
cpatternsisrelated
toCO2em
issions,pleaser
efer
to“C
arbo
nfootprint.”
(10)
Transportintegratio
n&conn
ectiv
ity
Extent
towhich
thep
ropo
sedprojectw
ould
beintegrated
with
andconn
ectedto
othertranspo
rt.Th
isinclu
desintermod
alintegration ,
which
refersto
howwe
lldifferent
mod
esof
transport(train,
bus,ferry,etc.)
areinterconn
ected.Interm
odalintegrationcanalso
referto
provision
sfor
activ
emod
esof
transport(cycling,walking
,etc.).
Whensuch
conn
ectio
nsares
moo
thandconvenient,intermod
alintegrationcanplay
anim
portantroleinprom
otinggreenandhealthy/activ
etravel.Transportintegratio
nalso
inclu
desc
onnectivity
oftravelsegm
entswith
inthes
amem
odeo
ftranspo
rt(tr
ain-to-tr
ain,bu
s-to-bus,etc.).
Con
nectivity
isac
loselyrelatedconceptthatcon
siders,alon
gsidetotaltraveltim
e,passengerd
iscom
fortassociated
with
waitin
g,transfe
r,andaccess/egresstim
es.Transitconn
ectiv
ityaimstoprovidea
ttractiv
eand
“seamless”transfersalon
gmultim
odalpathsa
sparto
fthe
door-to
-doo
rpassenger
chain.
Indirectsocietalim
pacts(externa
lities
-people)
(11)Ac
cessibility
Accessibilityreflectsthe
rangeo
fopp
ortunitie
sand
choicesp
eopleh
aveinconn
ectin
gwith
employment,education,
essentialservices,and
socialnetworks.Itcan
bemeasuredas
acatchmentareaa
ndisconcernedwith
travelho
rizon
s(journeytim
esanddista
nces).Itismore
holistic
than
transportu
serb
enefits,
asitconsidersthe
availabilityandph
ysicalaccessibilityof
atranspo
rtserviceinconn
ectio
nwith
the
locatio
nof
otherservicesa
ndactiv
ities.A
ccessib
ilityalso
inclu
deso
ptionvalue(thev
alue
ofthee
xiste
nceo
fthe
servicefor
convenienceo
run
plannedtrips)andno
n-usev
alue
(app
reciatingthatas
ervice
isavailablefor
others).
(12)
Accidents&
safety
Risk
ofindividu
als(bo
thtransportu
sersandno
n-users)beingkilledor
injuredas
aresulto
faccidents,
usually
measuredin
numbero
fcasualtie
s,fatalitieso
rinjuriesinag
iven
perio
d.Re
fersto
both
constructio
nandop
erationph
ases.E
xpectedcasualtie
swill
vary
with
infrastructuredesig
nandroute,depend
ingfore
xampleo
nroad
intersectio
ns,crossings/brid
ges,andsiz
eofthe
neighb
ourin
gpo
pulatio
n.
(13)
Com
mun
itydisrup
tion
&severance;blight
Com
mun
itydisrup
tionrefersto
thetem
porary,disr
uptiv
eimpactso
fprojectconstructio
non
resid
entia
lproperty,pu
blicspaces,and
commun
ities
asaw
hole.Itincludesimpactso
nthea
menity
ofresid
entsin
ther
emaining
partso
fthe
resid
entia
ldevelop
ment,inclu
ding
pleasantnessandvisualintrusion.
Com
mun
ityseverance referstothem
orelastin
gim
pactso
nac
ommun
ity,evenaft
erconstructio
nisfin
ished
andthetranspo
rtsyste
mis
operating.Severanceisthe
realor
perceivediso
latio
nof
resid
entia
lpropertieso
rcom
mun
ityfacilitiesd
ueto
physicalor
visualbarriers
caused
bytransportinfrastr
uctureor
traffi
cflow
s.Severanceisu
suallymeasuredas
aphysic
albarriertopedestr
ianmovem
ent,bu
talso
tocyclists,equestr
ians,childrenor
otherv
ulnerableg
roup
s.Blight
isther
eductio
nin
prop
ertyor
neighb
ourhoo
dvaluen
earp
ropo
sedprojectsites.Blight
takesp
lace
assoon
asap
otentia
lprojector
routeisp
ropo
sedandisparticularlyof
concernwhenthed
esignandconsultatio
nperio
dextend
soverm
anyyears.Blight
becomes
lessof
aprob
lem
once
adecision
hasb
eenreached,as
prop
ertyvalues
inareaso
frejectedprojectsmay
recovera
ndprop
ertyow
nersaffectedby
realized
projectsmay
becompensated.H
owever,itisv
erymuchap
roblem
fora
nyon
ewho
wantsto
sellaffectedprop
ertybefore
afinal
decisio
nhasb
eenreached.
10 Journal of Advanced Transportation
Table5:Con
tinued.
Criterion
Descriptio
n
(14)E
quity
&distr
ibutional
effects
Con
cernsa
bout
thed
istrib
utionof
projectcostsandbenefitsa
crossd
ifferentsocialgroup
sorg
eographicallocations.E
quity
isconcerned
abou
tequ
ality
ofop
portun
ity,w
ithap
artic
ular
focuso
nvu
lnerablegrou
ps.A
ffordability
oftransport(usually
measuredas
prop
ortio
nof
incomes
pent
ontransport)isrelatedto
equity
whenther
ealizationof
apartic
ular
projectresultsin
achangeintheo
ptions
availableto
others.Th
iscouldhapp
enifexistingtransportreceiveslessfun
ding
asar
esulto
fano
ther
projectb
eing
selected.C
loselyrelatedisthe
concepto
fopp
ortunitycost :
whatelse
couldthem
oney
bespento
n?Whereas
equity
emph
asizes
whoreceives
theb
enefits(e.g.,
transportatio
nforw
hom?),opp
ortunitycostem
phasizes
what
them
oney
isspento
n(tr
ansportatio
n?education?
sports?
andwith
intransportatio
n,wh
atkind
oftransport?)B
othop
portun
itycostandequityinvolvep
rioritizingthes
pend
ingof
publicmon
ey:onwhatand
forw
hom?
(15)
Land
use&
urban
developm
ent
Impactsthatn
ewtransportp
rojectsh
aveo
nland
use(resid
entia
l,indu
strialorc
ommercial)and
allocatio
nof
activ
ities
–also
referred
toas
Land
-Use
&TransportInteractio
n(LUTI).Ch
angesinthetranspo
rtsyste
maffectaccessib
ility,w
hich
reallocateslanduses
anddeterm
ines
thelocationof
newactiv
ities.Transpo
rtpo
liciesa
ndmeasures(e.g
.,TO
D,transit-oriented
developm
ent)canlead
tomoree
nergy-effi
cient
urbanform
s.Ofp
artic
ular
impo
rtance
inthec
ontextof
urbandevelopm
entisw
hether
housingwill
beactiv
elybu
iltalon
gwith
transport
infrastructure.
(16)
Land
scape/townscape
&cultu
ralherita
ge
Land
scape/townscape
impactsrefer
tochangesinthep
hysic
alandcultu
ralcharacteristicso
fthe
land
andperceptio
nsthatmakeu
pand
contrib
utetoland
scapec
haracter(“senseo
fplace”).Itcon
sistsof
impacted
topo
graphy,views,tre
ecover
(forlandscape)and
allaspectsof
theu
rban
form
(fortow
nscape),fro
mconstructio
nplansa
long
ther
outeto
overhead
lines,statio
ns,depots,tunn
elsa
ndventilatio
nshaft
s,fences
andbarriers,brid
ges,etc.Cu
lturalh
erita
geim
pactsrefer
toarchaeologicalandpaleo-environm
entalrem
ains
(ancient
buria
ls;ancientenviro
nments)
,historicland
scapes
andbu
ildings,and
theb
uiltenvironm
ent(bo
thdesig
natedandno
n-desig
natedassets)
,kno
wn
collectively
asheritagea
ssets.
(17)
Prestig
e&im
age
Prestig
e,pu
blicrecogn
ition
,and
positivem
ediacoverage
thatmay
begeneratedforthe
natio
n,ar
egion,or
publicoffi
cials.Pu
blicexpo
sure
thatap
rojectmay
generateforitsprop
onentsor
forp
oliticians.Th
ismay
also
inclu
dethep
otentia
lcon
tributionof
aprojectto
creatin
ga
senseo
fregionalorn
ationalidentity
orpride.
(18)
Railindu
strygrow
th&
inno
vatio
nCon
tributionto
strategicgoalso
fencou
raging
techno
logicalinn
ovation,grow
thof
commercialexpertise
with
inas
pecific
indu
stry,and
developm
ento
fnew
skillsinthelabou
rforce.Th
ismay
inclu
dethec
reationof
dedicatedtraining
centres.
(19)R
egionalecono
mic
developm
ent&
regeneratio
n
Region
alecon
omicdevelopm
ent referstowe
lfare
benefitsthatare
broaderthantransportu
serb
enefits.
Thesew
ider
econ
omicim
pacts
(WEI)a
ffectthelabou
rmarket,prod
uctm
arketand
land
market:(1)a
gglomerationeffects:
accessibilityof
firmstootherfi
rms,prod
ucts
andwo
rkers;theincreaseinlabo
urprod
uctiv
ityfro
mincreasedproxim
ity,kno
wledgea
ndtechno
logy
spillovers;(2)w
elfare
gain
forfi
rms
who
segood
sand
services
requ
iretransport;and(3)increased
taxrevenu
esfro
mthelabou
rmarket.Re
gion
aldevelopm
entalso
inclu
des
rebalancingthen
ationalecono
myandbridging
theN
orth-Sou
thdivide.
Wheninfrastructureislocatedin
areasd
esignatedfore
cono
micdevelopm
entu
nder
UKor
EUregeneratio
nprogrammes,projectsc
anhelp
meetregenerationgoalsb
ystimulatingecon
omicactiv
ityandem
ployment.
Journal of Advanced Transportation 11
Table5:Con
tinued.
Criterion
Descriptio
nEn
vironm
entalimpa
cts(externa
lities
-planet)
(20)
Agriculture,forestry&
soils
Soilqu
ality
impactso
nagric
ulturaland
forestr
yland
.Thed
river
island
“taken”from
agric
ulture
andforestr
yfora
ninfrastructureproject,
butthe
impactof
concernisno
tanacreageissue,but
rather
thelosso
fhigh
-qua
lityfarm
soil.Fo
rinfrastr
uctureprojects,
ahectareisa
hectare.Bu
tfor
farm
s,therea
redifferences
insoilqu
ality,and
thismay
notgetcompensated
inthelandprice.Protectin
ghigh
-quality
agric
ulturaland
forestr
yland
may
also
beconsidered
aprio
rityforsociety.
(21)Airqu
ality
Impactso
nlocaland
region
alairq
ualityfro
mdu
standem
issions
durin
gbo
thprojectcon
structio
nandop
eration.Im
pactsc
anbe
both
positive(
e.g.,decreasedem
issions
from
road
transportifm
odalshift
occurs)and
negativ
e(e.g
.,increased
emissions
from
diesel
locomotives
orincreasedroad
traffi
caroun
dsta
tions
anddepo
ts).
Pollu
tantsimpactinglocaland
region
alairq
ualityinclu
deoxides
ofnitro
gen(N
Ox),volatile
organicc
ompo
unds/hydrocarbon
s(V
OC/
HC/
PAH),particulatem
atter(PM
),oxides
ofsulphu
r(SO
x),ozone
(O3),carbo
nmon
oxide(
CO),andtracem
etals.Globalair
pollu
tants(CO2a
ndotherg
reenho
useg
ases)a
recoveredun
der“carbon
footprint”.
(22)
Biod
iversity&nature
Impactso
nnatureconservatio
narising
from
habitatlossa
nddegradation,
fragmentatio
nof
sites,severance
ofecologicalcorridorsa
ndnetworks,n
oise
andvisualdistu
rbance,barrie
reffectstomovem
ento
ffauna,artificiallig
hting,changesinwater
quality
andqu
antity,air
pollu
tion,
andmortalityas
aresulto
fcollisions
with
trains.Includedhere
areimpactso
nprotectedspeciesa
ndhabitats,
such
asSiteso
fSpecialScientifi
cInterest(SSSIs),A
reas
ofOutsta
ndingNaturalBe
auty(A
ONBs),NationalP
arks,E
nviro
nmentally
Sensitive
Areas
(ESA
s),
andancientw
oodlands,asw
ellasg
eneralecologicalvalueb
eyon
dsiteb
ound
aries.
(23)
Carbo
nfootprint
Allgreenh
ouse
gas(GHG)e
missions
associated
with
aprojectexpressedas
carbon
dioxidee
quivalent(CO2e).Asid
efrom
CO2,which
isthem
ostsignificantG
HGassociated
with
transportatio
nandenergy
use,GHGsinclude
methane
(CH4)
andnitro
usoxide(
N2O
).A
project’s
carbon
footprintcom
prise
sbothem
bedd
edcarbon
andfuelcarbon
.Embedd
edcarbon
refersto
CO2em
itted
durin
gproject
constructio
nas
wellas
inconn
ectio
nwith
prod
ucingthem
aterialsused
ininfrastructure(cem
ent,ste
eletc.)
.Fuelcarbo
nrefersto
CO2
emitted
durin
gtransporto
peratio
ns.Fuelcarbo
nem
issions
ared
riven
bytwofactors:(1)e
fficiency
ofenergy
form
(electric
ityvs.liquid
fuel);and(2)energysource
(renew
ablevs.fossil
fuel).
Tothee
xtentthatrailtranspo
rtismorefueland
/orc
arbo
neffi
cientthanroad
transport,mod
alshift
from
road
and/or
airtorailcouldlead
toan
etredu
ctionin
carbon
footprint.
(24)
Materialfoo
tprin
tSimilartocarbon
footprint,thismeasure
looksa
taproject’s
useo
fraw
materials(e.g.,metalandminerals),bothem
bedd
edin
the
infrastructureandrelatedto
operations.Itm
easuresb
oth“used”
extractio
n(th
eportio
nof
materialsthatendup
intheinfrastr
ucture)and
the“
unused”e
xtraction(th
ematerialw
asteassociated
with
miningandextractio
n).
(25)
Noise
&vibration
Nuisancetopeop
lecaused
byno
iseandvibrationfro
mroad
andrailtraffi
c,du
ringbo
thprojectcon
structio
nandtransporto
peratio
n.Im
pactsc
anbe
onindividu
aldw
ellin
gs(residentia
l)andon
commun
ities
(non
-residentia
l,e.g
.,op
enspaces,schoo
ls,ho
spita
ls,offi
ces,
hotels).
(26)
Solid
waste&disposal
Refersto
solid
wastefro
mconstructio
n(e.g.,e
arthwo
rks)andop
eratingactiv
ities
(e.g.,w
astesfrom
statio
ns,rollin
gsto
ckor
trackop
eration
andmaintenance),as
wellas
theimpactsa
ssociatedwith
itsdisposal.O
fpartic
ular
concernin
thec
aseo
flarge
infrastructureprojectsisthe
need
toexcavateenormou
squantities
ofdirtto
makew
ayforthe
projectand
ther
esultin
gneed
todisposeo
fvastq
uantities
ofsoil,someo
fwhich
may
becontam
inated
from
previous
land
use.In
additio
nto
theq
uantity
ofwastegenerated,thiscriterio
ncoversim
pactsa
ssociated
with
where
andho
w(e.g.,land
fillvs.recycling)
wastewill
bedisposed
of.
(27)
Water
&land
contam
ination
Water
contam
inationcanresulteither
directlyfro
mthed
isposalof
liquidwasteinto
surfa
ceandgrou
ndwater
orindirectlythroug
hsoil
contam
ination.
Soilcontam
inantsoft
enleachinto
surfa
ceandgrou
ndwater,w
hich
iswhy
land
andwater
contam
inationare
intercon
nected.G
roun
dcontam
inationcanoccure
ither
durin
gconstructio
nor
durin
gop
erationandinclu
desleaks
andspillages
from
line-sid
eequ
ipmentand
trains,indepo
tsor
alon
gtraintracks.
(28)
Waterresources&
flood
risk
Impacts(otherthancontam
ination)
onstr
uctureandflo
wof
surfa
cewaterways,bo
thnaturaland
artifi
cial(e.g.,c
hang
ingthec
ourseo
fstr
eamso
rchann
els;em
ptying
lakeso
rreservoirs
).Im
pactso
ndrainage
networks
(e.g.,bridgesa
ndem
bank
mentsob
structin
gpath
offlo
odwaters)andassociated
implications
forfl
oodris
k.
12 Journal of Advanced Transportation
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Journey time
Rail capacity for passengers
Traffic & transport disruption
Figure 2: Sliders used for criteria weighting. 0 = not important; 10 = very important.
0 2 4 6 82468
HS2 Phase Iperforms
much better
HS2 Phase Iperforms
much better
West Coast Main Lineupgradeperforms
much better
West Coast Main Lineupgradeperformsmuch better
High Speed Rail alongM1 motorwayperformsmuch better
High Speed Rail alongM1 motorwayperformsmuch better
Figure 3: 9-point scale matrix table used for pairwise comparisons in the assessment of project performance.
efficient to ask respondents to explain their ratings generally.This qualitative approach helped respondents clarify theiranswers and improve the quality of input and also providedus as researcherswith a better understanding of the numerouscomplexities hidden behind the assessment of a single crite-rion.
The assessment process also influences the accuracy ofassessment data. In particular, does the process accuratelycapture people’s judgments (whatever those judgments are)?We selected the Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP), oneof the most common MCA elicitation techniques usedin the transport field [34], for conducting assessments.AHP’s pairwise-comparison approach is easily understoodby respondents, and the inclusion of redundancy providesa consistency check. Scientific robustness (e.g., known rankreversal issues) can be addressed by usingmultiplicative AHP[40]. This is also an improvement on all implementationcriteria as the method does not require any specialized soft-ware, only a standard spreadsheet. A multiplicative structureis introduced to fit the ratio judgments made during thecomparisons, the scale is adjusted to fit the multiplicativestructure (-8, -6, . . .0, . . .6, 8), and the aggregation of scoresis based on simple geometric means [24]. AHP requires thatcriteria be nonoverlapping, mutually exclusive, and limitedin total number so as to avoid an exponential number ofcomparisons. Alternative methods exist when criteria havestrong mutual dependencies, e.g., ANP, Analytic NetworkProcess [41].
Because of its cognitive simplicity (reducing complexdecisions down to a series of pairwise comparisons), AHPcaptures people’s judgments accurately and has been shownin many settings to be reliable and robust [42]. In order togive flexibility in the number of project options considered
(since respondents had the possibility in part 1 of thequestionnaire to add an option) without losing accuracy inthe calculations, we selected themultiplicative variant of AHP[40].
The questionnaire iterated randomly through all selectedcriteria and asked respondents, “For each pair of projectoptions below, which one do you believe would performbetter in terms of<criterion>?”This formulation is importantso that each alternative is assessed from the perspective ofpositive performance, independently of whether the criterionis a cost or a benefit. The multiplicative AHP scale wasadapted to this case based on Lootsma [43, 44], as shownin Figure 3. A full description of the scale was available torespondents by clicking a button.
In addition to accuracy, objectivity is also consideredto be an important aspect of assessment quality. Ideallyassessments of project performance should be “objective”and value-free—in other words, separate from people’s pref-erences or desires. In reality, however, respondents may besubject to motivational bias (e.g., exaggerating the objectiveassessment in favor of their preferred option), whether con-sciously or unconsciously [45]. In an effort to reduce motiva-tional bias due to organizational affiliation, respondents wereasked to answer questions from their “individual perspectivebased on your cumulative knowledge and experience, notjust as a representative of your current organization or job.”Furthermore, performance assessments were averaged acrossall respondents, thus reducing the impact of any particularassessment on the results.
Even if it is not possible to guarantee complete objectivityin outcome for each assessment, it is important to note thatthe assessment process was procedurally objective, i.e., theassessment of each criterion was conducted in exactly the
Journal of Advanced Transportation 13
Table 6: Calculations for assessment example in Figure 3. Calculations based on Olson et al. [24].
𝛿(j,k) HS2 WCML M1HS2 0 8 2WCML -8 0 -6M1 -2 6 0eln(2)⋅𝛿(j,k) HS2 WCML M1 Assessment Results (geomean) NormalizedHS2 1 256 4 HS2 10.07937 79.8%WCML 0.00390625 1 0.015625 WCML 0.039373 0.3%M1 0.25 64 1 M1 2.519842 19.9%
∑ 12.63858 100%
same way, regardless of how important the criterion wasconsidered to be.
Project performance assessments are averaged across allrespondents. Calculated for each of the 28 criteria separately,the average performance assessment for each criterion isthe geometric mean of all individual pairwise comparisons.Using standard formulas detailed in Olson et al. [24], Table 6shows the calculation for the assessment example used inFigure 3.
4. Results
4.1. Performance Assessments for Each Criterion. Beforeproject performance assessments for each criterion can beaveraged across respondents, each individual’s assessmentshould be checked for internal consistency. For the AHP pro-cess, one rule of thumb that has been suggested is to excludeall inconsistent judgments over 10% [46]. This threshold wasdeveloped for comparing large numbers of items (such as8x8 matrices) and has been applied primarily in workshopsettings, where the AHP process often includes a reviewsession/round where inconsistent answers are discussed andadjusted. With an online questionnaire, inconsistent answerscan either be flagged during data collection (through animmediate consistency-calculation-and-answer-adjustmentfeature) or be discarded later during data analysis. The formerlengthens the time required for respondents to complete theperformance assessments. Given the many other importantareas of response elicitation in the appraisal process, alongwith a desire to make sure the total time commitment didnot go beyond 1-1.5 hours (which for a typical questionnairewould be unthinkably long, but conducted in an interviewsetting was acceptable to respondents), it was decided toforgo requiring fully consistent performance assessmentsbeforemoving on.The questionnaire-based process thereforeconsisted of a single round, leaving only a binary choice in theanalysis stage to either include or exclude answers. A strictconsistency threshold was found to favor assessments thatgave more equal performance to all three options, whereashigher thresholds allowed more differentiated judgmentsto be included. Furthermore, for most answers up to 50%inconsistency, the intention of respondents was still cleareven if the use of the scale was not entirely accurate. Forexample, in terms of journey experience, one respondentassessed HS2 as outperforming both the M1 alignment andthe WMCL upgrade equally (value = 4 for both), yet also
assessed the WCML upgrade as underperforming the M1alignment (value = -4). This implies that a higher number(i.e., 6 or 8) should have been entered for HS2’s performancevis a vis WMCL. The essence of the answer (i.e., HS2 >M1 > WCML) is nonetheless clear. The 10% threshold wastherefore deemed needlessly strict, and 33% was selected asa more appropriate threshold for data validity. This resultedin dropping 36 out of 238 total assessments, leaving 202 validassessments in the results.
Figure 4 presents the project performance assessmentresults for this case. Each bar shows the relative performanceof the three projects on one criterion. The number to theleft of each bar is the number of valid assessments includedin the average for that criterion (number of respondentswho selected that criterion). The discrepancy in number ofassessments for different criteria reflects the variation in theirperceived importance and/or relevance to the case. Figure 4also provides an overview of how well each project performson each of the three impact categories: direct impacts, indi-rect societal impacts, and environmental impacts. Withineach category, the criteria are ranked from best to worstperformance on HS2 Phase I (for viewing purposes). Theperformance assessment results are presented numerically inTable 7.
On the limited set of criteria representing the officialproject objectives that guided the government’s HS2 appraisalprocess, in this appraisal HS2 was likewise assessed asoutperforming the alternatives. This included regional eco-nomic development & regeneration, a goal which becameincreasingly important in the argumentation promoting HS2(see [4]). Of all the official goals of HS2, only transportintegration & connectivity was assessed as performing poorlycompared to the WCML upgrade option. This was explainedin interviews as being due to the nature of HSR (limitednumber of stations) as well as to the lack of direct connectionwith existing transport hubs (e.g., the New Street station inBirmingham, and to some extent airports).
Looking beyond the narrow set of assessment criteriathat represent the official project goals, the picture is quitedifferent. Most notably, both the M1 alignment and especiallythe WCML upgrade outperformed HS2 Phase I on almostall environmental criteria. This assessment confirmed theconcern raised by the House of Commons environmentalcommittee report regarding HS2 Phase I’s poor performanceon biodiversity & nature [47]. HS2 Phase I performance was
14 Journal of Advanced Transportation
Dir
ect p
roje
ct im
pact
sIn
dire
ct so
cial
impa
cts
Envi
ronm
enta
l im
pact
s
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
20. Agriculture, forestry & soils (4)22. Biodiversity & nature (5)
26. Solid waste & disposal (3)24. Material footprint (2)25. Noise & vibration (2)
27. Water & land contamination (2)23. Carbon footprint (16)
28. Water resources & flood risk (5)21. Air quality (3)
16. Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage (9)14. Equity & distributional effects (9)
13. Community disruption & severance; blight (6)15. Land use & urban development (9)
11. Accessibility (13)12. Accidents & safety (2)
19. Regional economic development & regeneration (16)18. Rail industry growth & innovation (2)
17. Prestige & image (2)1. Journey cost & affordability (4)
5. Project costs (16)6. Project delivery risks (4)
10. Transport integration & connectivity (13)2. Journey experience (2)
3. Journey reliability & system resilience (10)7. Rail capacity for freight (12)
8. Rail capacity for passengers (19)4. Journey time (9)
9. Traffic & transport disruption (3)
HS2M1WCML
Figure 4: Performance assessments for all 28 criteria based on pairwise comparison of projects (HS2, M1, WCML). Within each impactcategory (direct impacts, indirect societal impacts, and environmental impacts), criteria are ranked in order of performance on HS2 Phase I.(x) = number of times a criterion was selected and assessed, validated with 33% consistency threshold. See Table 7 for numerical results.
also found to be poor on a number of societal criteria, suchas accessibility, land use, landscape, and equity&distributionaleffects.
Impact assessment is central to appraisal outcomes; how-ever, as the project performance results in Figure 4 show,impact assessment on its own does not point to clear winnersor losers. It depends on the weights that are assigned to thevarious criteria.
4.2. Assignment to Stakeholder Groups. Whereas the projectperformance assessments are averaged across all respondents,the criteria weights are calculated for each stakeholder groupseparately. This is because the criteria weights are the com-ponent of the appraisal process that represents opinions, andthe goal of this research is to present multiple stakeholderperspectives. Before the weights can be calculated, it isnecessary to specify the subgroups whose opinions are to bepresented.
As described in Section 3.3.4, the overall group of stake-holders targeted in this paper was transport planners andexperts. In order to identify subgroups within that largergroup, the questionnaire included questions on professional
background and experience.The responses to these questionswere then used to determine the subgroups.
Respondents were assigned to subgroups in two steps (seeFigure 5): (1) applying a “sustainability expertise” filter and(2) categorizing by sector of employment. To qualify as a“sustainability expert,” the respondent had tomeet two of thefollowing three criteria:
(i) Have formal education in environmental studies(university degree or university-level coursework)
(ii) Conduct environmental analysis of HS2/transportinfrastructure “to a great extent”
(iii) Conduct analysis of HS2/transport infrastructureprimarily at “society-level (wider economic impacts,social/environmental issues)” rather than “project-level (system design, user benefits, project costs, etc.)”
As it turned out, the sectors aligned closely with sustainabilityexpertise (though this would not have to be the case), result-ing in the following four groups of transport professionals:
Journal of Advanced Transportation 15
Table 7: Performance assessments for all 28 criteria based on pairwise comparison of projects (HS2, M1, WCML). Percentagesmay not sumto 100% due to rounding.
Criterion HS2 M1 WCML
Direct projectimpacts (internal costs &benefits)
(1) Journey cost & affordability 2.9% 5.7% 91.4%(2) Journey experience 44.4% 44.4% 11.1%(3) Journey reliability & system resilience 54.0% 44.9% 1.2%(4) Journey time 76.1% 23.4% 0.5%(5) Project costs 5.0% 5.3% 89.7%(6) Project delivery risks 6.2% 15.5% 78.3%(7) Rail capacity for freight 57.6% 40.8% 1.6%(8) Rail capacity for passengers 65.6% 31.6% 2.8%(9) Traffic & transport disruption 92.8% 5.8% 1.4%(10) Transport integration & connectivity 12.2% 7.4% 80.4%
Indirect societalimpacts (externalities -people)
(11) Accessibility 16.4% 18.2% 65.4%(12) Accidents & safety 31.1% 19.6% 49.3%(13) Community disruption & severance; blight 7.3% 24.9% 67.8%(14) Equity & distributional effects 7.1% 9.6% 83.3%(15) Land use & urban development 9.9% 23.8% 66.3%(16) Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage 3.8% 31.5% 64.7%(17) Prestige & image 79.0% 19.8% 1.2%(18) Rail industry growth & innovation 70.6% 28.0% 1.4%(19) Regional economic development & regeneration 62.3% 33.0% 4.8%
Environmentalimpacts (externalities -planet)
(20) Agriculture, forestry & soils 0.3% 3.4% 96.3%(21) Air quality 25.7% 18.9% 55.5%(22) Biodiversity & nature 0.6% 34.1% 65.2%(23) Carbon footprint 12.6% 18.3% 69.1%(24) Material footprint 1.9% 1.2% 96.9%(25) Noise & vibration 8.1% 40.7% 51.3%(26) Solid waste & disposal 1.3% 4.3% 94.4%(27) Water & land contamination 9.1% 18.2% 72.7%(28) Water resources & flood risk 15.8% 36.3% 47.9%
(1) Government transport professionals: all employedat various levels of government, local, regional, ornational (it is noteworthy thatnone of the respondentsemployed in government/public sector met the crite-ria for sustainability expertise).
(2) NGOs: all belonging to nongovernmental organiza-tions, representing various local, regional, or nationalinterests.
(3) Sustainable transport researchers: all academic trans-port professionals with sustainability expertise.
(4) Other transport professionals: all those not includedin any of the above groups, including conventionaltransport planners [48] working in the private sectoror in academia.
4.3. Criteria Weights for Each Stakeholder Group. In con-trast to the performance assessments, which were averagedacross all respondents, the criteria weights were calculatedfor each group separately. Weights taken from the slider
scale (Figure 2) were recorded to one decimal place andnormalized. Normalization allows for grouping by type ofrespondent and is done by averaging the responses of allrespondents in each group. This process highlights the dif-ferent perspectives held by different groups with regard towhich criteria matter most. If a criterion was not selected(and therefore not weighted) by any of the respondents in thatgroup, then it received a weight of zero.
Resulting criteria weights for each of the four subgroupsare shown graphically as radial plots in Figure 6. Each plothas 28 axes (one for each criterion) measured in percentagepoints. The more weight assigned to a given criterion is,the further its data point is plotted from the origin. Moreimportant criteria (as prioritized by each group) are thepeaks in the spider graph, and less important criteria are thetroughs. These results are presented numerically in Table 8.
Not only do the graphs in Figure 6 show the resultsfor individual criteria, but because they are grouped byimpact category, they also provide an overview of the relativeimportance of each category. For example, government trans-port professionals assigned far more weight to direct project
16 Journal of Advanced Transportation
Transportprofessionals
(33)
• NGO (3)
• Academic (12)
• Government (8)
• Private sector (3)
• Academic (7)
•
•
•
Sustainabilityexpertise?
Yes
No
Sector ofemployment
Expert group
Sustainable transportresearchers (12)
NGO (3)
Government (8)
Other transportprofessionals (10)
Figure 5: Assigning transport professionals to expert groups. First filter: sustainability expertise. Second filter: sector of employment.
0%
3%
6%
9%
12%Journey cost
ExperienceReliability
TimeProj.cost
Proj.risk
Freight cap.
Passenger cap.
Trans.disrup.
Connectivity
AccessibilitySafety
CommunityEquity
Land useLandscape
PrestigeInnovation
Econ.dev.
Soil
Air
Biodiversity
Carbon
Material
NoiseWaste
ContaminationFlood
Gov
ernm
ent t
rans
port
pro
fess
iona
ls
12%
57%
30%
(a)
0%
3%
6%
9%
12%Journey cost
ExperienceReliability
TimeProj.cost
Proj.risk
Freight cap.
Passenger cap.
Trans.disrup.
Connectivity
Accessibility
SafetyCommunity
EquityLand useLandscape
PrestigeInnovation
Econ.dev.
Soil
Air
Biodiversity
Carbon
Material
NoiseWaste
ContaminationFlood
NG
Os
20%44%
36%
(b)
0%
3%
6%
9%
12%Journey cost
ExperienceReliability
TimeProj.cost
Proj.risk
Freight cap.
Passenger cap.
Trans.disrup.
Connectivity
Accessibility
SafetyCommunity
EquityLand use
LandscapePrestige
InnovationEcon.dev.
Soil
Air
Biodiversity
Carbon
Material
NoiseWaste
ContaminationFlood
Susta
inab
le tr
ansp
ort r
esea
rche
rs
17%44%
40%
(c)
0%
3%
6%
9%
12%
Journey costExperience
ReliabilityTime
Proj.cost
Proj.risk
Freight cap.
Passenger cap.
Trans.disrup.
Connectivity
Accessibility
SafetyCommunity
EquityLand use
LandscapePrestige
InnovationEcon.dev.
Soil
Air
Biodiversity
Carbon
Material
NoiseWaste
ContaminationFlood
Oth
er tr
ansp
ort p
rofe
ssio
nals
18%
51%
31%
(d)
Figure 6: Radial plots of criteria weights for each group of transport professionals. Each axis shows the percentage weight assigned to onecriterion, adding up to 100% for all 28. Blue = direct project impacts. Red = indirect societal impacts. Green = environmental impacts.Percentages shown in boxes are the total weight for each category (may not sum to 100% due to rounding). See Table 8 for complete numericalresults.
Journal of Advanced Transportation 17
Table 8: Criteria weights for government transport professionals, NGOs, sustainable transport researchers, and other transport professionals.Percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding.
Criterion Gov. NGO Sust. Other
Direct project impacts (internal costs & benefits)
(1) Journey cost & affordability 1.1% 0.0% 5.8% 0.6%(2) Journey experience 0.0% 0.0% 0.2% 1.1%(3) Journey reliability & system resilience 8.4% 0.0% 3.2% 3.9%(4) Journey time 9.0% 0.0% 4.2% 4.4%(5) Project costs 12.1% 15.3% 2.2% 15.9%(6) Project delivery risks 4.2% 0.0% 1.9% 0.4%(7) Rail capacity for freight 2.4% 8.7% 3.8% 7.8%(8) Rail capacity for passengers 12.6% 3.4% 11.2% 14.5%(9) Traffic & transport disruption 1.5% 0.0% 0.2% 0.0%(10) Transport integration & connectivity 5.9% 16.5% 11.1% 2.9%Total weight for direct project impacts 57.3% 44.0% 43.8% 51.4%
Indirect societal impacts (externalities - people)
(11) Accessibility 1.6% 5.8% 17.7% 7.0%(12) Accidents & safety 1.7% 0.0% 0.1% 1.4%(13) Community disruption & severance; blight 3.6% 0.0% 4.4% 0.7%(14) Equity & distributional effects 2.6% 3.9% 3.9% 1.7%(15) Land use & urban development 2.4% 11.6% 5.4% 5.0%(16) Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage 4.3% 11.2% 0.2% 4.3%(17) Prestige & image 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%(18) Rail industry growth & innovation 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0%(19) Regional economic development & regeneration 14.4% 3.2% 7.8% 10.7%Total weight for indirect societal impacts 30.4% 35.8% 39.6% 30.8%
Environmental impacts (externalities - planet)
(20) Agriculture, forestry & soils 0.0% 4.0% 0.1% 0.6%(21) Air quality 1.1% 0.0% 0.3% 0.0%(22) Biodiversity & nature 3.3% 4.9% 3.7% 5.3%(23) Carbon footprint 4.9% 6.4% 9.7% 7.0%(24) Material footprint 0.0% 0.0% 0.6% 0.0%(25) Noise & vibration 0.0% 0.0% 1.4% 0.0%(26) Solid waste & disposal 0.0% 0.0% 0.3% 2.5%(27) Water & land contamination 0.0% 0.0% 0.4% 0.6%(28) Water resources & flood risk 3.0% 4.9% 0.1% 1.6%Total weight for indirect environmental impacts 12.3% 20.2% 16.6% 17.7%
impacts than to environmental impacts, whereas sustainabletransport researchers were (relatively) more balanced in theirprioritization of the three categories.
Although the sample sizes for each subgroup are notlarge, the results can still be taken seriously. For groupsthat are fairly homogenous, research on the number ofinterviews required for reaching “saturation” (where answersconverge and additional judgments do not add new infor-mation or influence the overall result) suggests a target of12 and a cut-off of 6 responses to ensure validity [49]. Thismeans that the results for government transport experts(8 respondents) and sustainable transport researchers (12respondents), and probably also for “other” (consisting ofconventional transport professionals in private sector andresearch), depending on the assumed level of homogeneityfor that group, can be accepted as reasonably robust. TheNGO perspective, with only 3 respondents, lacks sufficientdata to be considered fully valid, but still constitutes anecdotalevidence.
4.4. Project Preferences for Each Stakeholder Group. To seehow these perspectives translate into project preferencesand decision-relevant outcomes, it is necessary to combinethe project performance assessments from Figure 4 withthe criteria weights in Figure 6. Figure 7 shows projectpreferences for each of the four expert groups, based on thegroup-average criteria prioritization and the all-respondent-average performance assessments.
Transport experts in government are found to favor ahigh-speed rail solution, but they are ambivalent regardingalignment.This outcome for transport experts in governmentis in slight contrast with decision-makers in governmentwho clearly supported the original HS2 alignment, whichother studies have explained by an initial political decisionto favor the higher speed option [9]. In the present study,the proposed HS2 alignment and the alignment along theM1 motorway corridor, both at 38%, are equally preferred,whereas the WCML upgrade, at 24%, is considered signifi-cantly less preferable. The main reason for favoring an HSR
18 Journal of Advanced Transportation
38%
13%
27% 30%
38%
23%
31%37%
24%
64%
42%
33%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Government transportprofessionals (8)
HS2M1WCML
NGOs (3) Sustainable transportresearchers (12)
Other transportprofessionals (10)
Figure 7: Project preferences for transport professionals. (#) = number of respondents in each group.
option is the high prioritization given to regional economicdevelopment & regeneration, on which both HSR optionsscore highly. Other transport professionals tend to prefer theM1 alignment over HS2, mostly because of a relatively lowerimportance given to journey time. In their case, the WCMLupgrade option is also deemed a viable alternative, duemostly to the high prioritization given to project costs (despiteuncertainties with actual costs of an upgrade). Sustainabletransport researchers, on the other hand, see the WCMLupgrade as clearly preferable to either HSR option, with aslight preference for the M1 alignment as a second choice(see also [39] for more on sustainability viewpoints). Thisis due to the low priority given to journey time and alsoto the high prioritizations given to accessibility, transportintegration & connectivity, and carbon footprint. NGOs werefound to strongly support the conclusions of sustainabilityadvocates with regard to preferring aWCMLupgrade, but fordifferent reasons: they were more concerned about impactson transport integration & connectivity, land use & urbandevelopment, and landscape & cultural heritage.
This paper’s proposed method not only displays rela-tive project preferences for each subgroup, but also, andimportantly, can explain why different groups favor differentoptions. Large transport infrastructure projects are oftencontentious and contested. In the end, the debate over HS2was driven largely by political goals that had little connectionto expert analyses [4]. This adversarial, politically drivendebate could likely have been avoided or mitigated had theparties been better able to understand each other’s underlyinginterests. Because these priorities are hidden or assumed inprevailing methods such as CBA, the debate moves awayfrom discussing interests and towards arguing positions—anunproductive style of conflict resolution that exacerbatescontention and hostility [50].
By contrast, MCA approaches make the criteria weightsthat drive project preferences explicit. If these prioritiesare made explicit for multiple groups (i.e., the MAMCA
approach), then the debate can shift from positions (i.e.,“best project”) to interests (i.e., which criteria matter most).Figure 8 presents the top 10 criteria, in order of importance,for each perspective. Together, these account for roughly 80%of each group’s total criteria weight. By contrast, the other 18criteria (see Table 8 for details) account for less than 20% ofeach group’s perspective. Moreover, it is helpful to notice thatmany of the same criteria are of concern to multiple groups,albeit ranked in different order. The fact that many of thesame criteria end up in multiple groups’ top 10 can serve asa means for finding common ground and thus help resolveconflicting views. Indeed, among the 18 criteria featured inthese four top-10 lists, eight of themare shared by at least threegroups, and one—carbon footprint—is shared by all fourgroups.
4.5. Sensitivity Analysis. For the criteria weights, it wassuggested that input should be solicited from a minimum of6 respondents per subgroup in order to adequately capturethe group’s perspective. But what about the performanceassessments? How many respondents should be required toassess each criterion in order to feel confident that the resultsare reliable? Future research is needed to answer this questiondefinitively, but for starters, it is worth noting that standardcurrent practice assumes that conducting assessments, unlikeassigning weights, is an objective process and therefore doesnot need to address the concept of convergence of opinion.MCAmethods do not requiremultiple experts to conduct theperformance assessments and frequently rely on only one or afew experts total for the assessment process. In this research,33 experts conducted 202 assessments across 28 criteria in aprocess that was far more comprehensive than is the norm.Furthermore, every single criterion was assessed by at least2-3 people. Compared to standard practice, this should bemore than sufficient. However, it is still worth asking whetherassessments might be improved if more experts are involved,and if so, how many?
Journal of Advanced Transportation 19
Regional econ. development & regeneration 14.4%
Rail capacity for passengers 12.6%
Project costs 12.1%
Journey time 9.0%
Journey reliability & system resilience 8.4%
Transport integration & connectivity 5.9%
Carbon footprint 4.9%
Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage 4.3%
Project delivery risks 4.2%
Community disruption & severance; blight 3.6%
Total 79%
Gov
ernm
ent t
rans
port
pro
fess
iona
ls
(a)
Transport integration & connectivity 16.5%
Project costs 15.3%
Land use & urban development 11.6%
Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage 11.2%
Rail capacity for freight 8.7%
Carbon footprint 6.4%
Accessibility 5.8%
Biodiversity & nature 4.9%
Water resources & flood risk 4.9%
Agriculture, forestry & soils 4.0%
Total 89%
NG
Os
(b)
Accessibility 17.7%
Rail capacity for passengers 11.2%
Transport integration & connectivity 11.1%
Carbon footprint 9.7%
Regional econ. development & regeneration 7.8%
Journey cost & affordability 5.8%
Land use & urban development 5.4%
Community disruption & severance; blight 4.4%
Journey time 4.2%
Equity & distributional effects 3.9%
Total 81%
Sust
aina
ble t
rans
port
rese
arch
ers
(c)
Project costs 15.9%
Rail capacity for passengers 14.5%
Regional econ. development & regeneration 10.7%
Rail capacity for freight 7.8%
Accessibility 7.0%
Carbon footprint 7.0%
Biodiversity & nature 5.3%
Land use & urban development 5.0%
Journey time 4.4%
Landscape, townscape & cultural heritage 4.3%
Total 82%
Oth
er tr
ansp
ort p
rofe
ssio
nals
(d)
Figure 8: Top 10 weighted criteria for each group of transport professionals. Blue = direct project impacts. Red = indirect societal impacts.Green = environmental impacts.
In earlier research, Cornet (2016) [51] applied a strictstandard of requiring a minimum of 4 independent assess-ments per criterion. This necessitated dropping some criteriafrom subsequent calculations. Since 10 criteria received only2-3 impact assessments, applying a minimum of 4 validassessments per criterionmeant basing the project preferencecalculations on only 18 criteria (8 direct project impacts; 6indirect societal impacts; 4 environmental impacts). As itturns out, compared with leaving all criteria in the analysis,this makes essentially no difference to the outcomes for anyof the four groups (37%, 39%, 24% instead of 38%, 38%, 24%for government; NGOs unchanged; 28%, 31%, 41% insteadof 27%, 31%, 42% for sustainable transport researchers; 32%,28%, 31% instead of 30%, 37%, 33% for other transportprofessionals). This is explained by the fact that criteriareceiving fewer assessments tended to be those deemed lessimportant for decision-making in this context. Whethercriteria are formally dropped or whether they are prioritized
with very small weights, the effect on project preferences isminimal.
5. Discussion: Reflections onthe Appraisal Process
Although the MAMCA process is straightforward and welldocumented, this study shows how a number of detailsneed to be carefully considered in applying it to large-scaletransport projects such as HS2 Phase I. Specifically, the toolshould balance the need to deliver presentable results withthe goal of promoting learning and ”negotiation”. Althoughsome of the procedural details of our appraisal processdiffer from the standard MAMCA process, the essentialpurpose—to solicit and make explicit the perspectives ofmultiple actors—remains the same. Indeed, some of theseprocedural details may be adapted to other MAMCA appli-cations.
20 Journal of Advanced Transportation
This study also provides some useful lessons on specificprocedural aspects of transport appraisal processes. Ourresults support the findings of others (see Section 3.4.3)that multiplicative AHP is a robust method of capturingjudgments. Validity for transport appraisal that addressessustainability issues requires comprehensiveness in the list ofrelevant impacts [23]. While it is important that all impactsare included in the initial list, it is not necessary for allrespondents to assess all impacts. A large enough number ofrespondents will eventually cover all aspects of the scheme,with performance assessments eventually converging. Thisreduces demands on individual respondents.
In terms of data collection methods, we found the struc-tured interview format (individual semistructured interviewsbased on a structured online questionnaire) to be very helpfulin ensuring the quality of respondents’ input. It allows theinterviewer to clarify the steps along the way, to addressconcerns about the method, and to ensure understandingof the alternatives, criteria, and scales used. For example,understanding what respondents have in mind when select-ing a particular criterion is necessary to ensure that weightsand assessments are properly ascribed and can subsequentlybe aggregated across respondents. The interview formatallows this to happen. The implication is that an assessmentin the form of a ”hands-off” online survey is much lesslikely to be answered properly, if at all. A further advantageof the interview technique, compared with a workshopsetting, is that it helps obtain the (confidential) views ofthose respondents who are opposed to the project or themethod, or who would normally stay more “quiet” in abigger group. The interview format also utilizes respondents’time more efficiently than a workshop setting, requiringonly 1h∼1h30 which can be scheduled at a time of theirconvenience.
The grouping of respondents into homogeneous sub-groups can be challenging in practice. At one extreme, thereare as many perspectives as there are respondents. Clear rulesfor categorizing respondents are essential to the transparencyof this exercise.
6. Conclusion and Future Research
Motivated by a concern that standard transport appraisalmethods do not adequately incorporate diverse perspectiveson the impacts of large-scale transport project, this researchaimed to develop and test new ways of presenting multiplestakeholder perspectives, explicitly and systematically. Weevaluated the feasibility of applying a modified MAMCAto assess the implications of large transport infrastructureprojects.
Our modifications included focusing on a particularsubset of stakeholders (transport professionals), yet definingthat subset broadly to incorporate diverse types of expertise,including energy, environment, and sustainability, as theyrelate to transport issues. The diversity of perspectives withinthis subset of stakeholders, even if not representative of allstakeholders, enables the method to be successfully demon-strated and could be adapted or expanded to include otherstakeholders.
A further modification in our process is the broadeningof the pool of transport professionals and experts engaged inassessing and comparing the impacts of project alternatives,which also implies a broadening of those who choose thecriteria for assessment. While our process engages the samegroup of transport experts in the assessment of projectimpacts and in the weighting of criteria, it would be possibleto decouple these steps and ask a broader group of stakehold-ers to weight the criteria than are asked to assess the projectimpacts.
Finally, by not continuing the MAMCA process to thepoint of recommending a particular project option, ourprocess puts a stronger emphasis on demonstrating theinfluence of different stakeholder perspectives on assessmentoutcomes. Although Macharis et al. [6] do propose a mech-anism for synthesizing perspectives to come up with projectrecommendation(s), they stress the fundamental importanceof including the descriptions of multiple perspectives as partof the final output. This paper’s presentation of multipleperspectives as final results is therefore verymuch in the spiritof MAMCA.
With regard to specific procedural aspects of appraisalprocesses, the most important learning from this researchis the usefulness of conducting semistructured interviews inconjunction with an online questionnaire for the assessmentand weighting process within MCA.
The proposed comparative stakeholder approach willprovide planners and decision-makers with a means of quan-tifying indirect impacts, thereby making them more visibleand comparable. In the context of transport appraisal, gainingsuch visibility is critical to avoid giving default priority tothose impacts that are more easily quantifiable.
More fundamentally, the approach developed here con-tributes to the shift towards more participatory, discur-sive, and civic types of assessment. It can help developmore systematic “active stakeholder management” proce-dures which make it possible to “assess the extent towhich stakeholder preferences are conflicting or converging”[35]. A possible extension to explore could be introducingpenalties in the ranking for projects that generate widelydiverging views, whereas those with greater consensus wouldbe rewarded—the consistency of support thus becoming acriterion within the MCA.
This paper demonstrates a new approach for incorpo-rating sustainability in transport appraisal. From a practicalperspective the approach allows for including a standard andcomprehensive set of sustainable transport criteria that couldbe used for ex-ante assessment, monitoring, and ex-postevaluation [23, 52]. If the list of criteria is sufficiently com-prehensive to include impacts of a wide range of transportprojects, this allows for comparing projects with differenttypes of goals. With this inmind, further research onwhetherdistinguishing between normative preference and contextualrelevance of impacts in MCA/MAMCA may be useful ifabsolute and global sustainability objectives were to be givenweights independently of the goals of a specific scheme (seeSection 3.4.1). To improve the communication of results,there is also potential for providing further sensitivity analysisto illustrate which criteria affect the differences in ranking
Journal of Advanced Transportation 21
between groups, which in turn could inform the decision-making processes.
There is evidence from the official HS2 appraisal materialthat stakeholders involved critiqued the government for notconsidering alternatives to HS2 [9]. This suggests there isgreat advantage in formalizing the use of an MCA-basedapproach already early in the appraisal process, at a stagewhen wider options are still being considered. Because MCArequires options to compare against and because the resultsare expressed in terms of relative desirability of projects, itrequires the explicit consideration of more than one project,and these projects must be considered on “equal” terms. Thisapproach effectively systematizes the inclusion and assess-ment of options in sustainable transport appraisal processes.Doing so would enhance the capacity to analyze conflictingviews, transparency of process, and accountability, both tocurrent and future generations.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the Strategic Research Councilof Denmark (Innovationsfonden) that funded the SUSTAINresearch project.
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