Evaluation of Benefits Generated by the Future Construction of Transport Infrastructures

This paper proposes a clear methodology for assessing the impact that might result in the insertion of a transport infrastructure in the road network of a city after comparing it to other infrastructure proposals, in order to prioritize its construction. The assessment of the impact for the construction of the proposed infrastructure was based on the pondered analysis of the following variables: Territorial Media Accessibility, Average traveling time, vehicle volumes, volume-capacity relationship, accident rates, surrounding land uses and budget. The proposed methodology was applied in the Formulation of the Mobility Plan of the city of Manizales (Colombia) in 2011. Initially, a diagnosis of the urban mobility from the operational and physical viewpoints was done to establish a starting point for the comparison of impacts. Subsequently, the infrastructure projects proposed by the Municipal Administration were classified and sectorized. Finally, a list of projects from the ones having the highest to the lowest impact was generated through the application of the pondered multi-criteria assessment to prioritize the necessary infrastructure programs for the city. The proposed methodology might be implemented in other cities regardless their size, as long as there is available updated information of the road network and also social and accident operational data. The results obtained established that major works are not always of highest priority, because priority depends not only in the impact on the operating variables, but also on social and health variables, which are often ignored in the mobility plans applied in Colombian cities.