Effective Practices for Preparing Airport Improvement Program Benefit-cost Analysis

Book excerpt: Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) aids in making capital investment decisions by determining whether the benefits of a proposed action justify its costs. This synthesis, Effective Practices for Preparing Airport Improvement Program Benefit-Cost Analysis, defines and describes benefit assessment techniques used by airports as well as other modes, highlights best practices, and identifies inconsistencies of how benefits are calculated and where there is confusion in the benefit-cost guidance published by the FAA. The project focused on a review of benefit-cost literature, including benefit-cost analyses submitted to the FAA, and structured interviews with airport managers and other applicants, consultants who prepared BCA studies, and FAA staff. BCA is a tool to aid agencies in project selection and prioritization. At its core, it is a computational tool to determine whether an investment will generate benefits that will exceed its costs. This analysis is accomplished by expressing all current and future benefits and costs on an equivalent basis, which is their present value (PV). A project is economically efficient if it has a positive Net Present Value (calculated as the PV of benefits minus the PV of costs), and hence also a Benefit-Cost Ratio exceeding one.