Employing analytic tools in large-scale engineering public policy-making

This paper examines the interactions of analytic approaches and policy-making for large-scale engineering projects. It is thereby argued that the efficiency of policy-making can be increased if a fruitful synergy between analytical decision analysis and political opinion forming can be achieved and nourished along the whole policy-making life cycle. The discussion is built around the NEAT rail project in Switzerland. Relevant analytic tools are addressed in terms of a newly proposed taxonomy. The appropriateness of those tools is then discussed in terms of the decision makers and environmental characteristics. Ways to improve the synergy between analysis and decision-making are based on the study of the life cycle of the project and the potential for successful analytic support.