At head of title: National Cooperative Freight Research Program. Research sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Includes bibliographical references.

"TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Research Report 38: Guide for Conducting Benefit-Cost Analyses of Multimodal, Multijurisdictional Freight Corridor Investments explores how to conduct benefit-cost analyses (BCAs). A BCA is an analytical framework used to evaluate public investment decisions including transportation investments. BCA is defined as a collection of methods and rules for assessing the social costs and benefits of alternative public policies. It promotes efficiency by identifying the set of feasible projects that would yield the largest positive net benefits to society."-- Introduction -- step 1. Define the project -- step 2. Determine scope of analysis -- step 3. Account for project costs -- step 4. Identify benefit triggers and metrics -- step 5. Develop forecasts -- step 6. Quantify and value applicable first-order public and private metrics and information needs -- step 7. Analyze public externalities and information needs (safety and the environment) -- step 8. Analyze higher-order quantifiable metrics -- step 9. Conduct BCA -- step 10. Develop decision criteria and report BCA results -- step 11. Evaluate and integrate risk and uncertainty -- References -- Acronyms and abbreviations -- appendix A. Rule of half principle, consumer surplus, producer surplus, kaldor-hicks criterion, and financial versus economic BCA -- appendix B. Projects with different service lives (EANB and CMPD) -- appendix C. Residual values -- appendix D. Logsum evaluation, diversion parameters, and examples -- appendix E. Benefits, valuation methodology, and valuation basis -- appendix F. Marginal external costs of highway use -- appendix G. Shortcut for analysis of generated traffic -- appendix H. Emission factors and emission costs -- appendix I. Logistics costs and supply chain effects -- appendix J. Multiple accounts BCA example -- appendix K. Examples of risk and uncertainty -- appendix L. Heartland corridor case study -- appendix M. Excel worksheets.