Transport planning: (ir)rational evaluation methods and decision making | Simon Bothof (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
We provide dessert for the break after the seminar. Please register if you want to join and/or enjoy the dessert! Online participation will be arranged upon request, you can indicate this in the registration form as well.
There is increasing awareness that there are serious ecological and social issues associated with our transport system, which is dominantly oriented towards automobility. At the same time government decisions on large transport investments are all too often still oriented towards the continued growth of car oriented transport networks, thereby exacerbating the problem. In this presentation Simon will discuss how economic rationality dominates the thinking in transport planning through his research on cost-benefit analysis, and he will show, with a case-study from The Netherlands, how the economic logic of CBA can come to clash with environmental regulations.
Bio
Simon Bothof is a PhD researcher investigating the appraisal methods used by governments to provide input for decisions on transport infrastructure investments. Together with his colleagues he focuses on the role that ecological and social issues play in current methods and policies, and questions how issues of sustainability and fairness can be further integrated in evaluation practices. The goal of their project, Strong sustainability appraisal for transport, is to develop new evaluation methods and to further improve on sustainability-, and justice-thinking in the realm of transport planning and policy.