Workshop: Beyond Conventional Cost-Benefit Analysis: New Approaches to Urban Decision-Making
Date: 7 October 2026, from 13:00 to 16:00 CEST | Location: Online
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) plays a central role in deciding which urban and transport interventions are built. However, conventional CBA practice is systematically biased: it overvalues travel time savings, undervalues health, equity and liveability, and structurally favours motorised travel over more affordable and resource-efficient modes.
This workshop first summarizes the findings of three years of work in UBDPolicy’s Work Package 3, “Tools and guidelines for cost-benefit analyses”, on the systematic flaws of conventional CBA. The workshop will also present emerging alternatives and extensions to conventional CBA and invites researchers, economists, transport practitioners and policymakers to discuss how health, equity, wellbeing and environmental impacts can be incorporated into decision-making.
PROGRAMME (tentative)
- 11:00–11:10 — Nadja Schweiggart (Linnaeus University): Welcome and introduction
- 11:10–11:30 — Stefan Gössling (Linnaeus University): Transport CBA: Flaws and Corrections (report on a Transport Policy paper with Bert van Wee, Karel Martens, and Mark Nieuwenhuijsen)
- 11:30–11:50 — Geert te Boveldt (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, VUB/Mobilise): Alternative evaluation methods
- 11:50–12:00 — Break
- 12:00–12:30 — Sara MacLennan (London School of Economics, LSE): Wellbeing valuation (WELLBY)
- 12:30–13:00 — Clive Spash (WU Vienna University of Economics and Business): Deliberative valuation and positional analysis
- 13:00–13:30 — Lunch break
- 13:30–14:00 — Jan Kwakkel (TU Delft): Decision-making under deep uncertainty
- 14:00–14:10 — Discussion and conclusions
REGISTRATION
Participation is free. Please register here to receive the Zoom link and workshop information.
