Overview
The FHWA Office of Operations initiated this project in recognition that practitioners were in need of relevant and practical guidance in how to effectively conduct benefit/cost analysis of a wide spectrum of transportation system management and operations strategies. The Operations Benefit/Cost Analysis Desk Reference project provides practitioners with relevant guidance on how to effectively and reliably estimate the benefits and costs of operations strategies.
Two primary products were developed in the project: the Operations Benefit/Cost Analysis Desk Reference document, intended to provide practitioners with relevant guidance on how to effectively and reliably estimate the benefits and costs of operations strategies; and a supporting spreadsheet-based decision support tool named the Tool for Operations Benefit/Cost (TOPS-BC), designed to provide a framework and relevant information for the conduct of B/C analysis.
This effort has recently been supported by an ongoing outreach and workshop effort intended to both inform practitioners of the availability of developed guidance, but also gather feedback from participants regarding real-world applications of the guidance and tool to challenges being encountered by practitioners. Each workshop has explored locally relevant B/C challenges and discussed approaches to meeting these challenges. These discussions are being used to enhance the tool and guidance as the project moves forward. This brochure highlights some of the challenges discussed in various workshop locations as well as provides examples of some of the innovative approaches proposed to address these analysis needs.