TOTAL-COST ANALYSIS - AN ALTERNATIVE TO BENEFIT-COST-ANALYSIS IN EVALUATING TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES

This paper explains the theory in support of total cost analysis (TCA) to compare transportation system alternatives. The full costs of each alternative are first aggregated, including travel time costs and mon etizable environmental and social costs. Many costs which are consider ed on the benefits side of the equation in benefit-cost analysis (BCA) as ''cost savings'' are brought over to the costs side. Total cost di fferences among alternatives are then traded off against their estimat ed non-monetized benefits or impacts, just as a consumer trades off pr oduct quality against cost before deciding which product he or she wil l buy. One advantage of TCA over traditional BCA is that the concept o f ''total cost'' is more easily understood by the public and by politi cal decision-makers than BCA concepts such as ''net present worth'', ' 'benefit-cost ratio'' and ''internal rate of return''. A second advant age is that there is no suggestion that all ''benefits'' have been con sidered; decision-makers are free to use their own value judgements to trade off total cost against non-monetizable social, environmental an d economic impacts, just as they trade off quality and convenience aga inst cost when purchasing goods and services in their roles as consume rs. The TCA approach is demonstrated in this paper through a case stud y of two systemwide alternatives for the Baltimore, MD urban area.