Time: 11:00am-1:00pm Friday 3 November 2023
Venue: Boardroom, Dept of Architecture, University of Cambridge, 1 Scroope Terrace, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PX
Abstract Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) has been widely recognized as a crucial step in the decision-making process for infrastructure investments. In Japan, the project appraisals of highway investment have been performed with a CBA manual, which is organized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure Transport and Tourism. However, as the method has not received a significant revision over time, it might not fully reflect recent social and technological changes. A research project is therefore initiated and funded by the Japanese government to review the current practices and to update the method using the latest data. Professor Hironori Kato will report the midterm achievements of this project, including the values of travel time savings, the values of travel time reliability, vehicle operating costs and the wider economic impacts of highway projects from the case of Japan.
Professor Hironori Kato is a full professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo since November 2013. His main research and teaching concerns are transportation planning and policy, transportation economics, transportation finance, and travel behavioral analysis. He is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of Asian Transport Studies, Member of Editorial Advisory Board of Transportation, and an Academic Editor of PLOS ONE. For more about his academic profile see http://trip.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kato/index.html