ABSTRACT
Transport investment can only be analysed in a context of the overall environment and of often-conflicting social objectives conceived at the broadest level by the community whose needs it is supposed to serve. As professionals, we must realise the fundamentally political nature of the value judgements inherent in the analysis of transport problems, and strive to raise the level of public involvement and accountability in their solution. This will necessitate more than behavioural modelling. By contrast, behavioural modelling presupposes the existence of a consensus and assumes that, once identified, that consensus can yield the basis for predicting future social values and preferences. The drawbacks of relying upon market prices as the basis for valuation of costs and benefits arising from any transport investment are well known, and yet the market mechanism could be described as the quintessence of a behavioural model.
