Engaging Multiple Actors in Large-Scale Transport Infrastructure Project Appraisal: An Application of MAMCA to the Case of HS2 High-Speed Rail

Abstract

The most widespread approach to transport appraisal is to combine cost-benefit analysis (CBA) with environmental assessments and public consultations. However, large-scale transport projects such as the HS2 high-speed rail system in the UK seem to have pushed this approach beyond its limits, leading to broad discontent with the appraisal process. There is a need both to develop new methods capable of integrating a wide range of perspectives in a systematic manner and to test these for large-scale projects. Multicriteria analysis (MCA) has proven useful in supporting transport decision-making by including a broader set of criteria in the appraisal process. Multiactor multicriteria analysis (MAMCA) has extended this approach to include multiple actors and stakeholders in the judgment and decision-making process. This paper builds on the MAMCA method and demonstrates its practicability and usability by applying it to the case of HS2. The purpose of this paper is not to reach a definitive conclusion on the desirability of various project options, but to complement existing transport appraisal methods by making different perspectives explicit. For example, the results for this case show contrasting views for different groups of transport professionals: a favorable assessment of HS2 among transport planners employed in government, but an unfavorable assessment among transport researchers with a background in sustainability. In terms of contribution to the development of data collection methods, this research demonstrates the usefulness of conducting semistructured interviews in conjunction with an online questionnaire for the assessment and weighting process within MCA. Because MCA results are expressed in terms of relative desirability of projects, the approach also effectively systematizes the inclusion and assessment of multiple options. Overall, the proposed method enhances the capacity to analyze conflicting views in large-scale transport project appraisal processes.

Standard Transport Appraisal Methods

“…• Transparency: the displaying, through tables, graphs or diagrams, of all the objectives, appraisal criteria, weights and scores adopted during the assessment as well as all the data and information employed during the analysis provides a clearer and more transparent approach to appraisal and evaluation Cornet et al, 2018a;Hickman, 2019).…”

“…• When combined with MCA methods, deliberative procedures can enhance even more the transparency of the appraisal exercise (Lami et al, 2011;Cornet et al, 2018a).…”

Selection and integration of environmental impacts in the Danish transport infrastructure assessment process

“…The main differences between the impacts assessed in Denmark and the corresponding content in the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden are presented in the following section. The review of the 12 UK process is based on the assessment of the High Speed Rail 2 (HS2) project (Booz & Co. and Temple, 2011;HS2 Ltd., 2013), which is a project that has undergone extensive assessment and an enormous amount of public available publications concerning the project exist (Cornet et al, 2018).…”

“…It can be difficult for stakeholders to agree on the weights of the impacts, and therefore, different overall stakeholder profiles can be generated to represent preferences relating to e.g. sustainability, environment, economy, urban development and social conditions (Cornet et al, 2018) However, it is important that all profiles are challenged to ensure useful discussions about the relative importance of the impacts (Barfod, 2012;Leleur, 2012).…”

“…Extensive research has been conducted within the area of indicators and impacts for assessing transport infrastructure projects (see e.g. Joumard and Nicolas (2010), Jourmard and Gudmundsson (2010), Zietsmann et al (2011 and Cornet et al (2018)). Several frameworks for environmental and social indicator sets have also been developed to accommodate this need (see e.g.…”