Pilot Projects to Validate the Results of T-PICS: Phase II

Project summary:

The web-based Transportation Project Impact Case Studies (T-PICS) interface has been developed for the U.S. Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP-II) as a free online tool for evaluating the economic impacts of various types of transportation improvements. The objective of this study is to provide a validation of the T-PICS evaluation system, with an emphasis on its application for generating a range of estimated impacts for specific project types based on projects within its database. This validation will be carried out by selecting a number of representative projects, collecting baseline economic data to describe before-and-after conditions (as is standard for T-PICS), and comparing the estimated impacts from T-PICS with those generated by alternative impact estimation methods, such as regional economic models and other econometric methods. The results of these comparisons will be used both to validate T-PICS as an evaluation tool and as the basis for offering ideas for enhancement of the case study repository and impact evaluation system.