9.2.2.1 Benefits to Transport Users

The economic benefits of transport projects are often captured through an analysis of the impacts on transport users. Benefits to  users often fall into the following sub-groups:

• Transport users whose travel patterns do not change but who enjoy time saving and/or other benefits;
• Diverting users, who switch from other routes because of changes in relative (generalised) costs;
• Diverting users who switch mode in response to changes in relative (generalised) costs;
• Generated users, whose use was previously frustrated by, for example, traffic conditions on the option, route or service; and
• Redistributed users who may change their origin or destination in response to transport changes (for example, finding employment elsewhere).

Benefits typically arise from a combination of the following:

• Changes in the monetary costs of travel;
• Journey time savings achieved directly, for example by using a new road or bridge rather than the next best alternative;
• Improvements in journey time reliability or journey quality, which may be especially important for certain types of users such as delivery services;
• Improvements in journey time reliability or journey quality, such as comfort or reduction in number of interchanges.

Journey tiem benefits and disbenefits form a key component of transport user benefits. The process to be applied in quantifying and valuing journey time changes is well established and forms the basis for transport modelling. This is described in section 9.2.2.4 and values of time to be used in appraisal can be found in section 9.5.12.

It is acknowledged that this approach may overlook significant differences in the distribution of journey time (dis-) benefits over space and across transport users.

Economic Activity and Locational Impact (EALI) assessment seeks to understand the distribution of benefits over space.

To give greater transparency to the distribution of (dis-) benefits across transport users, appraisers should, in addition to reporting aggregate journey time (dis-) benefits as a component of overall TEE benefits or costs, present journey time changes (as savings) classified by size. Six size classifications are recommended. This data is produced by the UK Department for Transport's "Transport User Benefit Analysis" (TUBA) software program version 1.8 onwards. The information should be presented as shown below:  

**Data should be provided for the 1st modelled year (after scheme opening) and for the entire appraisal period. These outputs are available from TUBA version 1.8 onwards. 

While the classification and presentation of journey time changes by size provides the decision maker with an understanding of the distribution or equity of journey time as savings among users, this does not exclude projects which do not offer journey time savings nor imply a preference for projects which result in a large number of small journey time savings. Furthermore, journey time changes should continue to be monetised using the standard equity values of time laid out in tables 9.7 and 9.8 until such time as the evidence for the value of small time savings versus large time savings is better established. 

As transport projects form part of a system or network, network-wide effects should be considered. This can help show whether transport users of other modes or routes gain if an option is implemented. Network effects which will give rise to benefits to non users include:

• Reduction in journey times on other routes which arise because of some users of the other route(s) switching to the new route or switching mode;
• Improvements in journey time reliability and other aspects of journey quality, arising for similar reasons.

These impacts may be reduced as changes in travel conditions are likely to generate additional traffic on other routes, so that, for example, time savings generated as some users switch routes are reduced, while suppressed demand is released on the other routes. These effects also need to be assessed where they are likely to be significant.

These impacts, which occur outwith or external to the option under consideration, need to be identified at an early stage in the Part 2 Appraisal. Where these are likely to be important in relation to the costs and other benefits of the option, they should be quantified in the same manner as direct benefits and costs. Further guidance on how to calculate these effects is provided in Section 9.5.23.