ABSTRACT
The costs incurred by the road user depend crucially on the amount and nature of the road capacity available to him. The benefits of a scheme essentially consist of cost savings to road users, comprising time savings, savings in vehicle operating costs and savings in accidents. Both the scheme set out in the TRRL paper and the Department of the Environment H.1/71 method were for the calculation of a 'first year economic rate of return'. The interaction between the road and the general environment, which cannot at this time, be fully included in the method. When roads are improved, and particularly when entirely new motorways are built, it is not only transport patterns but land use and activity patterns that may be affected. In terms of composition, strategy certainly shifted the emphasis towards urban road construction. The chapter concludes that at this level of aggregation, investment policy remains heavily dependent on political judgment and draws little from formal economic analysis.
