USER BENEFITS OF RAILROAD GRADE SEPARATION IN A SMALL COMMUNITY: PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR APPLYING MICROBENCOST

Abstract

As transportation system elements of this country continue to evolve, issues that may have seemed foregone to a prior generation have crystallized into topics requiring substantive review. Witness, for example, the growth in both freight railroad and vehicular traffic throughout the United States over the past 15 years. The product of their interaction at grade crossings is a mixture of congestion and safety concerns. The challenge for today's transportation professionals is how to monetize these concerns when reviewing project-specific issues. One tool for assessing economic impacts during the project development process is benefit-cost analysis. This paper presents a framework for estimating roadway user benefits and costs associated with railroad grade separation in a small community by applying the software and methodology of MicroBENCOST. In addition, a specific application of this approach in the St. Cloud, Minnesota metropolitan area (population 100,000) has been included. MicroBENCOST was released by the Texas Transportation Institute in 1993 to conduct benefit-cost analysis for highway improvements. A brief discussion of the software's current release and status has been included. Like most computer software, MicroBENCOST provides the user with a number of default values. This paper identifies defaults and other data that require the use of project-specific inputs. It also discusses practical techniques to focus productive, yet low cost, data collection prior to analysis. Of greatest importance when considering railroad grade crossing issues are railroad operation values such as train distribution, length, and speed. A methodology for collecting and summarizing this data is described in order to assist others with this task. Once the necessary data has been collected, MicroBENCOST can be used to develop an input file and test a variety of alternatives. To demonstrate application of this framework, a case study involving a potential grade separation is described. Since there was some uncertainty associated with the forecasted data, a sensitivity analysis was conducted. Tips and traps associated with the use of this software are also presented.