Economic evaluation of a conventional public transit system in low-density areas

Abstract

Changes in socio-demographic and settlement patterns have occurred in the past four decades in Portugal, which have brought several problems to ensure a territorial cohesion and viable public transportation systems, especially in low density areas. Recent changes in the Portuguese legal framework on public transportation of passengers try to tackle some of the issues arising from this new territorial dynamics, through the possibility of integrating more flexible transit systems. In this paper a methodology combining Cost-Benefit and Multi-Criteria Analysis will be proposed for the economic evaluation of these systems. The work relies mainly on the selection of the main indicators (cost/ benefit) that can be used in the evaluation. In sum, the aim of this paper is to identify the principal indicators that can be used in a future Project Economic Evaluation of a Demand Responsive Transport system for low density areas.