METHODS OF ASSESSING PUBLIC(ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC) EFFECTIVENESS OF TRANSPORT PROJECTS IN RUSSIA

Abstract

The article reviews the history of Cost - Benefit Analysis for investment projects in road infrastructure.The topicality of the subject is due to the fact that in Russia there is a vacuum existing today in respect of methods for social and environmental evaluation of projects with public funding. In global practice, the analysis of “costs and benefits” is widely applied to justification of public financing for transport infrastructure projects. Use of this method in Russia will allow to refocus infrastructure projects on a sustainable development and increase their financial stability, will also create a mechanism for justifying state investments channeling into transport infrastructure and will offer quantitative criteria for selection of projects. A particular feature of this method is the inclusion in project analysis of nonmarket impacts generated by the project - social, economic benefits and losses to society. The article considers the main categories of gains and losses to society in creating the transport infrastructure; defines the problem of their evaluation, and suggests approaches to accounting for these effects during the social assessment phase. The application of the considered method is also illustrated in the article through an analysis of a project to deploy a network of high-speed highways in Russia expected to be made operational by the year 2030. Prospects for development of this kind of analysis in Russia relate to further elaboration of the methodological basis for evaluation of ecological damages and social effects relying on non-market techniques and sustaining further research in these issues.