Ex-post evaluation is important to improving the delivery of transport policy objectives. It can be used for multiple purposes at the core of which is the improvement of ex-ante assessment. A small number of jurisdictions employ ex-post evaluation systematically and leading experience is reviewed in this report. One reason ex-post analysis is not more widely employed is a number of methodological and data challenges. Several approaches have been developed to tackle these, including advanced statistical approaches, establishment of transport observatories to retain data that would otherwise be lost and a case study approach to compare similar locations subject to different investment and policy treatments. This report examines examples of best practice, discussing the potential of different approaches and how they can be used to complement each other.

Ex-post evaluation is important to improving the delivery of transport policy objectives. It can be used for multiple purposes at the core of which is the improvement of ex-ante assessment. A small number of jurisdictions employ ex-post evaluation systematically and leading experience is ...

Ex-post evaluation can be used to serve multiple purposes at the core of which is the improvement of ex-ante analysis: - It can help policy-makers better identify the kinds of projects that work best in certain situations; - It can identify the effect of concurrent non-transportation investments and their interaction with transportation investments; - It can contribute to establishing the time frames in which we expect to see economic impacts materialize, thereby helping to set realistic expectations for the effect of investments and economic development; - We can make use of findings of ex-post assessments to support communication with the public, improve the information provided, and support consensus-building efforts.

This paper presents the results of research recently conducted by the authors on ex-post analysis focused on the long-term economic impacts of transportation system investments in the United States (US). For a variety of reasons, the US has had a tradition of making transport investments to address economic development goals and applying ex-post analysis to assess achievement of economic development impacts. These past studies are reviewed, as are some of the deficiencies and suggested improvements in methods for ex-post analysis. The paper also reviews methods to refine ex-post analysis of economic development in the US via the Transportation Impact Project Case Studies (TPICS) system developed as a national database of land and economic development impact studies. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for broader distribution and support for the tools and methods developed in TPICS, and an assessment of the challenges facing wider adoption and application of the ex-post analysis in the US context. Specific adoption and implementation issues and opportunities are addressed in the context of the US Department of Transportation's TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) discretionary grant program.

In France, the obligation to conduct an ex-post assessment is relatively recent (1982) but it has in fact revealed some methodological problems that flow from the retrospective nature of the exercise. This report shows that some of those difficulties can be overcome through the establishment of permanent observatories. It presents examples of such observatories, with a particular focus on motorway ("autoroute", or "freeway" in North American usage) investments. A particular case is then investigated, concerning the socioeconomic observatory on the effects of the Sud-Europe-Atlantique [South-Europe-Atlantic] high-speed train line that is now under construction. This major project (€7.8 billion) has been let under a concession. The concession contract calls for the establishment of an observatory that also covers the construction period and is to remain in operation for 10 years after the line comes into service, or until 2027. Besides an overall presentation of the mechanism, the report deals in particular with the metrological precautions that must be taken in order to monitor the multimodal offer of transport for the areas concerned. One of the key issues here, in fact, is to explain the discrepancies between forecast and projected and actual traffic, an explanation that may be more complete than in the ex-post evaluation procedure.

This paper presents the results of research recently conducted by the authors on ex-post analysis focused on the long-term economic impacts of transportation system investments in the United States (US). For a variety of reasons, the US has had a tradition of making transport investments to address economic development goals and applying ex-post analysis to assess achievement of economic development impacts. These past studies are reviewed, as are some of the deficiencies and suggested improvements in methods for ex-post analysis. The paper also reviews methods to refine ex-post analysis of economic development in the US via the Transportation Impact Project Case Studies (TPICS) system developed as a national database of land and economic development impact studies. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for broader distribution and support for the tools and methods developed in TPICS, and an assessment of the challenges facing wider adoption and application of the ex-post analysis in the US context. Specific adoption and implementation issues and opportunities are addressed in the context of the US Department of Transportation's TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) discretionary grant program.