The Bruce Highway Action Plan (BHAP) Program Evaluation was a momentous task conducted in most part by the Transport and Main Roads (TMR) Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) Team. The evaluation included 189 overtaking lanes, 404kms of road widening and shoulder sealing in various places between Brisbane and Cairns, 56 capacity focused projects and 16 flood immunity focused projects. The total projected capital costs of all projects proposed as part of the BHAP amounted to over Sixteen Billion Dollars. The program evaluation conducted, due to the short timeframes, lack of available data and strategic nature of the plan, has been ‘coined’ a strategic evaluation.
This paper focuses on the methodology applied to the projects proposed in the BHAP. A TMR designed project/program evaluation model (CARP V1.0) was used to evaluate the majority of the proposed BHAP projects. The model produces streams of discounted benefits and costs of the projects and program using limited and incomplete data. The large scale of work and the close proximity of projects allowed for an integrated approach to the analysis, which considered the impact projects have on each other.
The result of the program if all evaluated projects are included is a benefit cost ratio (BCR) of approximately 0.71 at a discount rate of 7%. If the less viable projects are removed from the program, the program can obtain a benefit cost ratio of greater than one with a sufficiently large number of projects remaining.
The video can be watched at the link below:
The reference and link to the full paper (journal) is as follows:
Davies, W. (2015), Bruce Highway Action Plan Program Evaluation, Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, 9, (3), 350-367, available at:
http://www.davidpublisher.com/index.php/Home/Article/index?id=3923.html
The reference and link to the original conference paper, available at:
Davies, W. (2013), Program Evaluation: An Applied Case Study, Australasian Transport Research Forum 2013 (Paper and presentation), available at:
http://www.atrf.info/papers/2013/2013_davies.pdf
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