Evaluation of Road Investment Project Effectiveness

Abstract

Roads in Lithuania are financed only from collected road taxes; however, this funding is not sufficient for road maintenance and improvement. Lithuanian Road Administration under the Ministry of Transport and Communications allocates the funding received from European Regional Development Fund as follows: improvement of pavement of regional roads, implementation of traffic safety and environmental measures, and implementation of Gravel Roads Paving Programme. Since 2004 road projects in Lithuania have been financed from European Union funds. Unfortunately these financial resources are not sufficient for the implementation of all road investment projects in Lithuania. The problem of selecting the most effective road investment projects is becoming more and more acute. Road investment project alternatives have to be appraised in an integrated manner using mathematical models in addition to economic, social and environmental criteria. Scientific problem – road investment projects are often appraised from economic, social and environmental viewpoints separately by applying different mathematical models and without using the principle of sustainable development and multi-criteria appraisal methods for integrated analysis of road investments. The authors propose to select criteria from sustainable environment components, which best reflect economic, social and environmental aspects. It should be noted that these economic, social and environmental aspects are interrelated and complementary, and therefore influence the appraisal of road investment projects. The article analyses and evaluates the effectiveness of road investment project alternatives by combining economic, social and environmental aspects and processing the data using expert and multi-criteria appraisal methods. Scientific novelty – an integrated evaluation of economic, social and environmental aspects by using multi-criteria appraisal methods is proposed. The aim of the research – to present the road investment project appraisal methodology based on the principle of sustainable development and perform the appraisal of the alternative projects by making computations according to expert and TOPSIS (Technique for the Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) appraisal methods. The object of the research – road investment projects. The methods of the research – expert and multicriteria appraisal method TOPSIS is applied.