Transport projects have the potential to impact upon economic performance at the local level and may influence demand for the location of economic and other activities.
Whilst the TEE and WEBs aim to capture the net economic benefits of a project at the national level, the EALI is more concerned with the spatial distribution of these national impacts to allow an assessment of the impact on the local economy. The EALI complements the TEE and WEB but does not generally identify additional economic impacts that could be added to the TEE and WEB results. Generally the EALI will restate the TEE and WEB impacts using narrower measures of economic welfare..
The nature of EALI analysis is currently subject to a review arising from the inclusion of WEBs within STAG. The current position is that WEBs refine the TEE analysis and may involve issues of double counting with EALIs. However, as TEE/WEB and EALI results are presented separately, the current view is that they represent different ways of representing the same information.
Practitioners may take the view that the inclusion of WEBs, which is a relatively arduous process may reduce the need for EALI analysis. This issue is currently under review; however, the view of Transport Scotland is that EALI analysis remains important as a tool for analysing the distributional impacts of transport, but that the resources committed to it may be reduced with the incorporation of WEBs.
The EALI component remains particularly important in assessing the distributional impact of an option and is particularly relevant to assessing how far a transport project might support regeneration policy objectives in a particular area. Where EALI impacts are expected to be significant, it is suggested that EALIs are assessed directly and presented separately using GDP and/or employment measures.
EALIs must be presented at the Scotland level, and consequently must include both local, or intra-area, impacts and inter-area impacts. Both the positive and negative impacts attributable to a scheme must be identified, including any displacement effects.
The EALI is particularly relevant to assessing how far a transport project might support regeneration policy objectives in a particular area.
