The book investigates how, and which, forgiving road environments (FOR) and self-explaining road measures (SER) will contribute to increasing road safety and also increase network efficiency on the road. It presents both the general approach and the methodology for generating the possible FOR and SER measures. The book further discusses the prioritization and the testing methodologies, as well as the designing VMS methodology. The next parts of the book present a few important examples: lane departure warning systems; intelligent speed adaptation systems and perception enhancement studies; designs of European pictorial signs, e.g. for VMS but also examples of designs of European road wordings; and finally how personalization can take place of VMS signs and wordings for the individual driver. The last part shows the final evaluation of FOR and SER, and detailed Multiple Criterion Analysis and Cost Benefit Analyses are performed on a number of FOR and SER measures. This results in the development of a set of guidelines, conclusions and recommendations for the future.

Drawing on the principles of welfare economics and public finance, this second edition of Cost-Benefit Analysis: Theory and Application provides the theoretical foundation for a general framework within which costs and benefits are identified and assessed from a societal perspective. With a thorough coverage of cost-benefit concepts and their underlying theory, the volumecarries the reader through the steps of a typical evaluation process, including the identification, measurement, and comparison of costs and benefits, and project selection. Topics include alternative measures of welfare change, such as the concepts of consumer surplus and compensating and equivalent variation measures, shadow pricing, nonmarket valuation techniques of contingent valuation and discrete choice experiment, perspectives on what constitutes a theoretically acceptable discount rate, the social rate of time preference, income distribution, and much more. The book also focuses on real-world applications of cost-benefit analysis in two closely related areas—environment and health care—followed by an examination of the current state of the art in cost-benefit analysis as practiced by international agencies.

This book develops and applies an integrated socio-economic assessment of multi-use offshore platforms in European marine locations. The sites assessed regard infrastructures in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic coast. The assessment uses the results from the natural and engineering sciences as inputs, boundaries and constraints to the socio-economic analysis. The content of the book develops in a step-by-step, coherent and integrated manner. The presentation and the discussion on the methodology are followed by the detailed assessment of specific multi-use offshore platforms. A detailed risk analysis follows in which the results of the socio-economic assessment are integrated. This is complemented with sensitivity analysis. The book, offers insights that result from a multi-disciplinary approach which combines a broad range of expertise in hydraulics, wind engineering, aquaculture, renewable energy, marine environment, project management, socio-economics and governance. The analysis follows views and assessment of world experts from all relevant disciplines from academia, big companies and potential investors that have joined forces in the MERMAID project (vliz.be/projects/mermaidproject). The book is a valuable reading for academics, technicians, policy-makers and relevant stakeholders.