Improving Transport Project Appraisals
In the Islamic Countries
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 Effect maximisation: an analysis of which alternative yields the highest level of desired
effects on society; these effects need to be made comparable by monetisation or doing a
partial MCA. This method is only appropriate for alternatives with more or less the same cost,
which does not apply to our list of ten transport projects.
In MCA one does not try to express all effects in one dimension (money), which is a strong
limitation in comparison to CBA, but several dimensions are used at the same time. Criteria can
be measured in money units, minutes, grams, decibels or even be qualitative (e.g. ranking of
projects on a criterion). The overall assessment of a project or the ranking of different projects,
using all the criteria, takes place by using criterion weights, which form an expression of political
priorities. MCA also scores high on providing transparency. It requires less work to prepare the
effects sheet than in CBA for the costs and benefits, and can take into account effects that are not
in money or not even quantified. Two important disadvantages are that several MCA methods
are quite elaborated in their processing of the effects sheet and that they require importance
weights for the criteria. These are often hard to come by/agree on.
Ad 2) Items of a project appraisal
The standard content of project appraisal (as laid out in guidance documents, if present) can be
assessed by identifying which items are required or recommended. A typical appraisal report
includes the following items:
 Description of the context,
 Project identification and objectives,
 Demand analysis,
 Technical design of the project,
 Management and time plan,
 Financial analysis,
 Economic analysis,
 Risk assessment.
Clearly, the content reflects the purpose of the appraisal and the methodological approach
followed. For example, while the EC requires to perform a financial analysis, which is used to
assess the financing gap and therefore the calculation of the EU grant, in the UK only an economic
analysis is asked for. Regardless methodological specificities, a trade-off exists between setting
mandatory requirements (including standard template) and establishing a minimum set of
contents. The EU cohesion policy legislation for 2014-2020 (article 101 of Regulation (EU) No
1303/2013) provides an example of mandatory content for major project appraisals (see
further in section 3.3.4)
The extent to which elements are mandatory in CBA for different OECD countries is presented
i