ABSTRACT
Impact predictions form the basis for the planning and the design of new (road) infrastructure. For many decades, forecasting models have been applied for the estimation of future traffic intensities, the design of alternative solutions and their impacts on noise, air quality, nature, etc. As a consequence, much experience has been gained with the application of these models. Strikingly enough, however, recently the quality and the usefulness of these traffic models and also the air quality forecasting models have been heavily debated in the Netherlands (see, for example, V&W, 2008a; TK, 2008). In response to delays in planning and decision-making on infrastructure
projects – and especially national road projects – the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Environment together appointed an external committee on the “faster decision-making of infrastructure projects” (also known after its chairman as the “Committee Elverding”). This Committee Elverding concluded that “much time is spent on producing detailed forecasts with many assumptions that involve wide margins of uncertainty” (Elverding, 2008: 5). According to the committee, forecasts are made an “absolute truth” in the plans that are produced in order to achieve “full control” of the related risks. This results in a fictional certainty – verisimilitude. The Committee Elverding has made several recommendations to improve current practice, which are relevant to the issue of managing risks of impact assessment and which are later discussed in the section on reducing risks. Flyvbjerg (2007: 1) concludes on the basis of an international analysis
of realised projects that “forecasters misinform and sometimes even lie about the projected costs, benefits and risks. This results in costs overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the mismanagement of risks to a degree that often jeopardizes project viability”. Flyvbjerg has also been involved in the Dutch
Temporary Infrastructure Committee (TK, 2004). This committee evaluated budget overruns of major infrastructure projects, which included also the issue of quality of (impact) information. The TIC concluded – among other things – that the quality of impact information is often controversial, debatable. According to the committee, impact information is used strategically, is distributed unequally and is of a confidential nature. Furthermore, it observed important bottlenecks related to project organisation, project control and risk management (TK, 2004). Also internationally, the accuracy and usefulness of traditional transport
modelling approaches have been debated by, for example, Timms (2008) and Kane and Del Mistro (2003). Timms (2008: 410) pleads for the adoption of a communicative approach to transport modelling that views models as tools in communicative planning processes (see also Bannister, 2008). Models used in such processes would benefit by being subjectivist, whereby explicit recognition is made by the modeller about the (personal) level of uncertainty in the model. Kane and Del Mistro (2003: 113) argue that the rational comprehensive model of thinking is less useful today, due to: the increasing complexity of the transport planning exercise; the rejection by the public of the transport planner as an “expert”; and the highly political nature of transport planning. Alternative approaches are needed in order to address the types of problem that transport planners face. Recently, an increasing number of Dutch policy reports and recommenda-
tions have been produced about dealing more usefully with impact assessments in infrastructure planning (Annema and Spit, 2008; Elverding, 2008; KiM 2008; Verheijen, 2008). This can be seen as a response to the discussions about the quality of impact assessments. This advice focuses mainly on traffic forecasting models and the air quality estimation problems. However, these forecasts form only one part of the problem. In addition, impact assessments of noise, nature and tunnel safety are also heavily debated. These impact predictions are not isolated products. They form part of ex
ante evaluations, such as environmental impact assessments (EIA) and costbenefit analyses (CBA) that are integrated in plan-and decision-making processes about route decisions, urban land use plans, environmental permits or other decisions giving planning consent. Many of these ex ante impact assessments have their origins in the rational planning approaches of the 1960s in order to reduce uncertainty and prevent unexpected consequences in planning and decision-making (Arts, 1998; Niekerk, 2000). The rationale behind these assessments is getting a grip on uncertainties intrinsic to a prospective activity as planning, which relates to the principle of “think before you act”. These days, however, impact predictions and assessments for infrastruc-
ture projects have themselves become a source of substantial societal risk. In environmental impact studies much detailed information is usually gathered in order to check whether the various alternatives fit within the strict
(environmental) regulations. The calcula tions for predicting traffic, air, noise or nature impacts prove to be complex and they suffer from inaccuracies. As a consequence, interest groups that oppose a project can easily find facts in the great amount of detailed information that contain some errors and they have a good chance of winning a court case against a project. In order to hedge such judicial issues, in a new round of “wrestling”, project teams prepare even more extensive and detailed impact assessments to substantiate the project plans. This, however, only seems to intensify public resistance. The discussions about the quality of the assessments result in delays, obstruction or cancellation of projects. The key question of our chapter is: how can impact assessments become
again an instrument for risk management in plan-and decision-making instead of being a source of risks? To answer this question, this chapter explores what insights management literature may offer to reduce these risks. The word “management” is related to words such as “govern”, “control” and “organisation”. Depending on the management strategy, management may help to realise unique or routine products or organise interactive processes. In our view, management strategies such as project, process, programme and line management, can be useful to get a grip on risks. It has sometimes even been claimed that all project management is in essence just risk management (Field and Keller, 1998: 109). According to Field and Keller, the aim of the project manager is to fight the variety of hazards to which a project may be exposed. Because getting a grip on risks of impact assessment is the main objective of our chapter, it seems worthwhile to explore management literature for the means to reduce these risks. In this chapter we focus especially on experiences with evaluation and planning for national road projects in the Netherlands as many interesting developments can be seen recently. However, we think that similar issues will apply to other fields of planning and evaluation not only in the Netherlands but also abroad.
