Proceedings of the 13th Meeting of the
Transport and Communications Working Group
34
national context. The manuals are expected to provide clear guidance on how project appraisal is
to be carried out, including:
 A description of the appraisal process, with clearly defined steps, including project
identification, demand analysis, options analysis, options for financial sustainability,
return on the project and on private capital, economic analysis, and risk analysis.
 Methodological standards, such as typical costs and benefits to be included, techniques
to deal with the monetization of benefits, etc.
 Standard input parameters, such as project duration, discount rate, values of time, the
value of statistical life, etc. can be periodically reviewed.
The standardization and harmonization in transport project appraisals contribute to the credibility
of the results. Furthermore, it contributes to the ability to compare appraisal results, which may
be beneficial for the prioritization of projects.
Policy Recommendation III: Applying transport project appraisals as main part of a project
cycle and making use of quality data/information as well as the lessons generated from the
implementation of the previous project(s).
Rationale:
While project appraisal is a wider process, it is commonly used as an ex-ante evaluation of a
project for justifying an investment decision. Far from being confined to an ex-ante dimension in
the pre-feasibility stage, project appraisal should also be performed in-itinere and ex-post phases.
Furthermore, project appraisals necessarily rely on appropriate data and information. In order to
improve the quality of the appraisals, project data and information should be collected and made
available to the relevant national authorities for monitoring purposes and next project generation
as benchmark studies.
In addition, monitoring the implementation process of a project and carrying out a systematic ex-
post evaluation of a project is critically important to compare planning and implementation. This
will allow benchmarking the performance achieved during the implementation of the project and
providing lessons learned for the next project appraisals.
Policy Recommendation IV: Encouraging the enhancement of transport project appraisals
capacity through a system of official certification of competences, exchange of experience,
training programs, seminars, conferences, and workshops, etc.
Rationale:
Adequate institutional and human capacity is of utmost importance for underpinning the better
transport project appraisals. It is also essential for having above-mentioned wider appraisal
framework and facilitating the decision-making process. The capacity in transport project
appraisals can be strengthened, among others, by: