Comparison of Project Evaluation Using Cost-Benefit Analysis and Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration in the Transportation Domain

The paper discusses the application of two decision methods, Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration (MATE), to the selection of “best” design alternatives across two case studies in the transportation domain. The cases are an airport express for the city of Chicago, and a freight rail line linking Lisbon, Portugal to Madrid, Spain. Through the joint use of MATE and CBA in project selection, shortcomings of CBA can be mitigated. Additional insight is gained with MATE through the ability to explore the distribution of project costs and benefits and related incentives for behavioral shifts, the keeping separate of different types of costs (for example, tangible and intangible), and the systematic exploration of a large number of designs early on in the process of conceptual design.

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