Applying electrical utility least-cost approach to transportation planning

Abstract

Members of the energy and environmental communities believe that parallels exist between electrical utility least-cost planning and transportation planning. In particular, the Washington State Energy Strategy Committee believes that an integrated and comprehensive transportation planning process should be developed to fairly evaluate the costs of both demand-side and supply-side transportation options, establish competition between different travel modes, and select the mix of options designed to meet system goals at the lowest cost to society. Comparisons between travel modes are also required under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). ISTEA calls for the development of procedures to compare demand management against infrastructure investment solutions and requires the consideration of efficiency, socioeconomic and environmental factors in the evaluation process. Several of the techniques and approaches used in energy least-cost planning and utility peak demand management can be incorporated into a least-cost transportation planning methodology. The concepts of avoided plants, expressing avoidable costs in levelized nominal dollars to compare projects with different on-line dates and service lives, the supply curve, and the resource stack can be directly adapted from the energy sector.