Skip to main content

Monetising time savings makes toll roads financially stack up, says research

Putting a financial value on the savings from traffic congestion, noise and air pollution as a result of toll roads and tunnels will make large infrastructure projects more cost effective, according to a new study by Australia’s Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Sae Chi, from the university’s Science and Engineering Faculty, has compared the financial and economic cost of public and privately operated toll roads and tunnels, and found the net impacts to the community should be taken into account
September 29, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Putting a financial value on the savings from traffic congestion, noise and air pollution as a result of toll roads and tunnels will make large infrastructure projects more cost effective, according to a new study by Australia’s Queensland University of Technology (QUT).


Sae Chi, from the university’s Science and Engineering Faculty, has compared the financial and economic cost of public and privately operated toll roads and tunnels, and found the net impacts to the community should be taken into account in decision-making about transport infrastructure investment.

The research has been published in the Journal of Transportation Engineering titled Measuring impacts and risks to the public of a privately operated toll road project by considering perspectives in cost-benefit analysis.

The report claims that the financial bottom line should not be the only consideration when determining whether or not to invest in toll roads and tunnels.

Governments often partner with the private sector to share the costs and risks of building and operating toll road and tunnel projects. However, the report says that while private operators were looking for a bottom line return on investment, governments needed to consider benefits in addition to toll charges and traffic flows that can result in profits. Even when partnering with the private sector, it is important that governments consider the public benefits and monetise savings such as travel time, reduced costs to drivers and the positive outcomes for the environment. Chi believes that when governments put a financial cost on these factors the cost-benefit analysis sways much more heavily in favour of supporting infrastructure investment.

Chi said current cost-benefit analysis for road and tunnel projects was limited in Australia, and in most cases focused on the financials and not the public benefits. “But governments are responsible for public decision making for the good of their constituents and this includes ensuring that public funds are invested wisely and that regulation of private sector activity ensures a net benefit to society,” she said.

Chi believes the study findings would help support increased infrastructure investment across the nation, especially in high-growth population areas.

Related Content

  • How C/AVs could serve rural communities
    July 23, 2019
    In Ireland, there is low population density and a lot of rain – which can make last-mile journeys a trial. Orla O’Halloran at Arup has some thoughts on how C/AVs could serve rural communities Connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) have the potential to be a vital link for people in rural communities, as part of a wider Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solution. That is the view of Orla O’Halloran, intelligent mobility consultant at Arup. She believes that MaaS needs to be considered in conjunction with ot
  • Thales builds on Canadian connection for transit R&D
    June 20, 2016
    The Canadian province of Ontario is continuing to benefit from its ongoing investment in transit R&D. David Crawford looks at the impact of new investment. Developing the next generation of urban rail signalling solutions worldwide, with the emphasis on transit security and efficiency, is the goal of a recently-created business partnership between the government of the Canadian province of Ontario and Thales Canada. The wholly-owned subsidiary of the France-HQ'd global defence, aerospace and transportation
  • US ITS sector needs strategic leadership
    January 31, 2012
    The US is losing its advantage in the ITS sector because of a lack of strategic leadership, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Here, Stephen Ezell, one of the report's authors, talks to ITS International about what can be done to remedy the situation. A new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), Explaining International IT Leadership: Intelligent Transportation Systems, makes for sobering reading within the US ITS community.
  • Kapsch’s scalable tolling back office accepts mixed feeds
    September 15, 2014
    Arno Klamminger and Wolfgang Fleischer from Kapsch’s ETC Business Unit outline a new back office solution which addresses the ongoing changes in the road user charging sector. The rapidly increasing scale of some Road User Charging (RUC) schemes, both current and proposed, presents systems developers and manufacturers with significant opportunities in terms of product sales. However, it also presents them with significant challenges - and size is but one part – as at regional, national and international lev