ECONWORKS CASE
STUDIES (C03)
Implementation
Assistance Final Report
Rhode Island
Rhode Island Division of Planning
April 25, 2016
ECONWORKS CASE STUDIES (C03) Implementation Assistance Final Report
Rhode Island
Contents
1
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1
2
Assessment of Experience .................................................................................................................. 1
3
2.1
Suitability for Range of Project Types ....................................................................................... 2
2.2
Consensus Building ................................................................................................................... 3
2.3
Ease of Use ............................................................................................................................... 3
2.4
Interpretation and Reasonableness Checking of Outputs ........................................................ 4
Lessons Learned and Recommendations ........................................................................................... 5
3.1
Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................................... 5
3.2
Recommendations .................................................................................................................... 6
4
Recommended Case Studies.............................................................................................................. 7
5
Team Members ................................................................................................................................... 7
6
Data and Inputs Needs ........................................................................................................................ 8
7
Summary of Outputs ........................................................................................................................... 8
8
Transportation and Economic Analysis in Rhode Island ..................................................................... 9
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1
Introduction
Rhode Island was awarded an implementation assistance grant by the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) through Round 4 of the Strategic Highway Research Program 2
(SHRP2) Implementation Assistance Program. The grant required using the funds to
demonstrate and document the use of EconWorks Case Studies by the Rhode Island
Statewide Planning Program for a specific application of early-stage transportation
planning. The selected application for the testing was preliminary evaluation of
investment options as part of the Rhode Island Statewide Freight and Goods Movement
Plan (Statewide Freight Plan). The Statewide Freight Plan identifies infrastructure
improvements across all modes in an effort to optimize both freight movement and travel
for individuals in the state. The application of the C03 tools focused solely on highway
improvements or multi-modal improvements with a roadway component, as these are the
only projects included in the database. The results of the analysis are one element of the
overall project selection and prioritization process that will be conducted as part of the
Statewide Freight Plan.
2
Assessment of Experience
Working with Rhode Island Statewide Planning, the study team identified projects in the
very early stages of planning to be evaluated using the EconWorks Case Studies tools.
The tools were used to assess 15 proposed projects of varying types, intended to
accomplish different goals, and located across the state. An overview of the projects is
shown on page 10 of this report. The section below reviews the user experience with the
tools.
Issue
Description
Small sample size in Case Search
database
Limited number of projects in database can
create problems in finding comparable projects.
Vague input definitions
Some of the inputs (economic distress,
qualitative slider bars) have unclear definitions
and different interpretations can alter the results.
Economic distress is defined differently in
various places of the documentation (compared
to national vs. compared to regional). No clear
definition of the qualitative impacts could be
found in the documentation.
Occasional interface issues
Use of certain browsers can result in issues with
the interface causing outputs to not properly
display.
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2.1
Selection of project type and
motivation can be difficult
Exact solution to issues may not be known at
early stage of planning. Selection of different
“project type” solutions may result in very
different outcomes.
Reconstruction vs. New
Construction
Projects that are reconstruction or expansion as
opposed to new construction may have different
economic impacts that may not be easily
distinguished from the tool.
Interchange results may vary
Interchange projects in non-distressed areas do
not show economic impacts. The line between
distressed and non-distressed areas may be
blurry and the impacts from interchanges may
thus be understated.
Suitability for Range of Project Types
At a very broad level, the tools were helpful for comparing the potential outcomes of a
variety of highway projects. It seems that the efficacy of the comparison depends on the
project location and environment. The tools may be valuable in some places, but were
not as useful as initially hoped in Rhode Island. There were some difficulties
encountered, including trying to find comparable case studies. The 15 projects examined
covered four of the 10 project types, with two projects that could be more than one type –
4 access roads, 3 bridges, 8 interchanges, and 2 widening projects. No issues that would
be solved by any of the remaining six project types were identified, thus only these four
categories were examined.
Like other states in the Northeast, much of Rhode Island is developed with extensive
infrastructure already in place. Thus, the projects under consideration are typically
upgrades or replacements of existing infrastructure rather than development of greenfield
areas or the construction of completely new infrastructure. Many of the comparison
projects in the Case Search database were new development. These comparisons seem
more suitable for areas where expansion is still occurring, which is generally not the case
in Rhode Island or much of New England. Comparable redevelopment or improvement
projects, like the ones chosen for Rhode Island, were much more difficult to find in the
database and thus the impacts estimated for the projects may be slightly overstated.
As pointed out in the tool documentation, the limited number of projects in the Case
Search database severely limits sample sizes when searching for comparable projects of
a specific type. The planned addition of case studies to the database should help
alleviate some of this difficulty and increase the usefulness of the tool across a wider
variety of project types that all fall into each of the 10 broad categories. An emphasis on
projects that improve already constructed infrastructure may be useful to ensure that the
data base encompasses a full range of project types.
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2.2
Consensus Building
To build consensus regarding the outputs from the C03 Tools, a discussion was held on
November 18, 2015 in coordination with efforts for the Statewide Freight Plan. The
Freight Plan Steering Committee, a panel of stakeholders guiding discussion and
decisions related to the Statewide Freight Plan, met to review and prioritize proposed
projects for the Plan. During this meeting, they were given an overview of the SHRP2
tools and shown the results of the C03 analysis for discussion. During this conversation,
they were asked several questions to determine whether the projected results were
consistent with expectations considering their knowledge of the project areas.
After hearing about the goals of SHRP-2 and the EconWorks Case Studies Tools, the
Freight Plan Steering Committee engaged in a discussion about the results as shown on
page 10 of this report. The group unanimously agreed that these results were not
representative of their expectations for project outcomes associated with the proposed
improvements. They were concerned with the seeming inconsistency of the tool outputs.
It did not make sense to them that the tool showed no economic outputs for some of the
most significant projects on the list, including new interchanges at Route 4 & I-95 SB and
Routes 6/10 at I-95. Although the team explained that these results were due to
limitations of the tool related specifically to these types of projects and locations, the
committee felt that the problems undercut the legitimacy of the results for all of the
projects. Rhode Island had no other economic model outcomes with which the
reasonableness of the results could be assessed.
2.3
Ease of Use
Overall, the tools are very simple to use, particularly the Case Search. The user interface
for both modules is very straightforward. The most difficult component is that some of the
definitions, including economic distress, may be unclear from simply looking at the
interface and a typical user may find that the Instructions for Use do not always provide
clear or easily understood definitions. Additionally, some of the required data, including
the project cost and projected traffic counts may be unavailable at such an early stage of
planning. Keeping in context that the tools are mainly meant as a preliminary analysis
and not a substitute for a full economic impact study, these limitations are
understandable.
In terms of the interface, the selection process is quite simple for both the Case Search
and My Project Tools modules and its use is intuitive. There were some issues with the
appearance and the way the Case Search results popped up, but that may be due to
browser issues. At times, the results box popup completely covered the inputs and
instructions and could not be closed without restarting the browser. This removed the
option of changing inputs on both the Case Search and My Project Tools module. At
other times, the results in both modules would appear as an Excel worksheet and not the
formatted interface. This only caused problems when the outputs could not be read, as
shown in the screen capture below. None of these issues were prohibitive to using the
tools, and they were generally resolved by re-opening the internet browser and starting
over. The tool interface has also been updated and improved since the Division of
Planning used it to analyze the freight projects.
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Minor difficulty arose when determining the project types and motivations. While the
project types seem to be well defined in the Handbook for Practitioners, the nature of the
projects evaluated for Rhode Island and the early stage of planning caused some
difficulty in selecting the project type. At this stage of planning, the projects chosen by
the team aim to alleviate an existing issue, though the best solution to the problem is not
always clear. This causes some difficulty in choosing the best project type. For example,
one of the proposed improvements involves northbound access from I-95 to Route 146
and the State Offices in Providence. The ultimate goal is to separate entering and exiting
traffic, though the means to achieve that goal remain unclear. Possible solutions include
an access road, a bridge, an interchange, or a connector. These are all quite different
options which provide quite different outputs from the EconWorks Case Studies tools.
Determining which project type may provide the best sample case studies proved to be a
bit more difficult than hoped, though not impossible. For this analysis, the user checked
for case studies for each of the possible improvement options and looked for any that
had a similar purpose or goal. In many cases, this type of project selection will be
straightforward, but in other cases, such as the project noted above, users may have to
go through a lengthy, iterative process to determine which project type is most suitable.
Another area of difficulty was interpreting the qualitative slider bars on the My Project
Tools module. The project team was unable to find any clarification or definition of the
measures in the documentation. This was particularly difficult when determining whether
adjustments should be made to the land use policies, infrastructure, or business climate
gauges as there is no clear definition of what qualifies as “state-of-art” infrastructure as
opposed to “average” infrastructure, for example. The slider bars themselves were also
difficult to control, with the bar continuing to move after the correct values were selected.
The differences are generally small, but this was a point of frustration during the analysis.
Despite these small “hiccups,” the tool itself was relatively easy to use, particularly if one
is prepared with all of the necessary data inputs. This preparation is easily achieved with
a review of the Handbook for Practitioners and a few moments spent reviewing the user
interface.
2.4
Interpretation and Reasonableness Checking of
Outputs
Based on the guidance in the EconWorks Case Studies documentation, the results from
the analysis were considered illustrative and not definitive answers of precise economic
impacts expected from each of the proposed projects. The small sample sizes for exact
comparison projects – including region, distress level and urban status – decreases the
likelihood of accurate results from the tool. No formal economic impact tools were used
to check the reasonableness of the long-term outputs. Existing conditions in the area, the
nature of the improvement, and knowledge of comparable areas and improvements were
used to qualitatively gauge whether or not the projected outputs seemed reasonable.
Due to the nature of many of the improvements in Rhode Island – reconstruction rather
than new construction – many of the projected outputs seemed a bit higher than
expected. Conversely, the six interchange projects presented no economic impact
whatsoever. Given the nature of some of these proposed interchange improvements, this
output seemed unreasonably low. Inconsistency in the results and minor issues
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encountered while using the tool (such as the slider bar sensitivity) should lead the user
to use the results with caution.
While the results in My Project Tools were based on statistical analysis, the sample size
for the various projects leads to some concern with the outputs, particularly because of
the inconsistencies and zero impacts for interchanges in distressed metro areas.
As noted in the documentation, the outputs from the tools do not account for congestion
and time savings impacts, which tend to be the primary drivers for the proposed Rhode
Island improvements. Thus, while the economic impacts can be used as one measure of
comparison, the Division of Planning understands that this should not be the primary
driver of decision-making for these investments.
3
Lessons Learned and Recommendations
Analyzing 15 different projects using EconWorks Case Studies generated a variety of
lessons learned and recommendations for improvement of the EconWorks Case Studies
tools. The lessons learned typically centered on the types of projects that are not suitable
for analysis using the tools. The recommendations were primarily based around
approaches to make the tools slightly more user friendly.
3.1
Lessons Learned
The first major lesson learned is that the tool may not be suitable for all types of highway
projects in all environments. The still-limited size of the Case Search database poses
problems for some types of highway improvements that may be a priority to agencies.
The economic impacts considered by the tool are one of many very important
considerations that enter the planning process.
Experiences with the tool indicate that it is better suited for certain project types,
particularly new infrastructure rather than rehabilitation or replacement of existing
infrastructure. As most of the projects under consideration in Rhode Island are
rehabilitation projects, the tool was not always adequate. For example, the database did
not have any projects suitable for comparison of an intersection upgrade (from signalized
intersection to an interchange) and was not useful for interchange projects in distressed
metro areas (discussed below). Overall, the user should have a good understanding of
the limitations of the tool and the projects that it can handle before deciding whether or
not it is appropriate for their purposes.
The second lesson learned is that the results can be inconsistent and should not be
considered the primary driver for decision-making, though they can be used as part of
the discussion. As noted previously, there are limitations to the types of projects that can
reliably generate results. For example, the tool suggests that an interchange in a
distressed area will not generate benefits, but an interchange in a non-distressed area
will. This is troubling because the area in question may be on the cusp between
distressed and non-distressed and according to the model, they would have drastically
different results.
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Beyond the discrepancy in interchange projects, there are other issues as well. For
example, sometimes the results do not adjust when the project type is changed. As an
example, one project evaluated by the team could be considered either an access road,
connector, or bridge. When utilizing the tool, the user selected each of these options in
My Project Tools to compare results. When the project type was changed from access
road to connector, jobs increased from the range of 44-74 to the range of 1,147-1,911.
When the project type was then changed from connector to bridge, the new results were
exactly the same. After closing the browser and restarting the web tool, the bridge results
showed a range of 1,496-2,493 jobs which is different from the previous evaluation
showing 1,147-1,911 jobs generated. This discrepancy leads to additional concerns
about the results generated by the tool. Another notable concern was that sometimes
changing Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) altered the impacts and sometimes it did
not. The inconsistency in the adjustments that will alter results raises doubts about the
outputs generated by the tool.
3.2
Recommendations
One of the primary economic impacts generated by the tool is jobs, suggesting that job
generation may be the primary motivation of a project. While jobs are often an important
factor in assessing the value of a project investment, other considerations may be more
critical to a decision maker or a higher priority to the public at large. It is somewhat
confusing that the project motivation is considered when reviewing the case studies in
the Case Search module, but it is not a consideration that would later be reflected in the
potential economic impacts in My Project Tools. Theoretically, it seems that the goals
behind a project would influence the overall economic impacts. Asking a user to indicate
the motivation behind a project, and then providing metrics that show how successful the
project is expected to be in achieving that primary purpose may be a useful
enhancement to the tool.
Expanding on this issue, FHWA should consider including safety in the list of
motivations. This may be challenging since traffic related impacts are generally separate
from the economic impacts, but safety improvements are often a strong motivator of
infrastructure investment. While many of the proposed improvements considered in
Rhode Island will improve access for freight and other users, a primary purpose of many
improvements is safety. Safety was something that was also noted in several of the case
studies that were evaluated, indicating that it was often a driver of these other projects as
well. For users who may not have easy access to other project evaluation tools, and will
rely heavily on the outputs of EconWorks Case Studies, it is important that a factor as
critical as safety be included in the assessment of a project’s worth. Even if it is not a
driver of ultimate economic impacts, acknowledging this factor somewhere in the
documentation would be beneficial to users.
Another recommendation would be to increase clarity in the definitions and user guide.
There appear to be some inconsistencies in definitions between the Description and
Interpretation of Case Studies: Handbook for Practitioners and the Transportation Project
Impact Case Studies (TPICS): Data Dictionary. Examples include a discrepancy in the
definition of “economically distressed,” which is defined as the location compared to the
nation in the Data Dictionary and the location compared to the region in the Handbook
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for Practitioners. There are also differences in the source for the “extent of mountain
terrain,” making it difficult to locate the scale used for comparison.
Of greater concern is that there is no clear definition for any of the three qualitative
measures – land use policies, infrastructure and business climate. These variables are
indicated by moving the slider bars in My Project Tools. Their adjustment impacts the
project results, yet they are not defined anywhere. This lack of definition may lead users
to incorrectly interpret the position of their relative area and over- or under-estimate the
potential economic impacts of their proposed projects. This may not be an issue if the
same user makes the same adjustments for all projects and there is no attempt to
compare results with other communities, but if different users within an agency are
attempting to analyze proposed projects, this could create discrepancies between their
results. Additionally, better definitions would ensure consistency within the EconWorks
Case Studies tools, across projects located in different regions, being managed by
different agencies.
4
Recommended Case Studies
A project recommended for a case study is “Route 403 to Quonset.” This project, located
in North Kingstown, was the construction of a new, 4.5 mile limited access highway
connecting Route 4 to the Quonset Business Park. The new roadway opened in 2006.
The roadway is a realignment of the previous Route 403 to better serve the 3,000 acre
Business Park with multi-modal transportation connections. The projects total cost was
$199 million (2004 dollars); maximum AADT is 16,600, pre-construction economic impact
data are available.
The second case study is Rhode Island 99, also known as the Woonsocket Industrial
Highway. This 2.9 mile limited-access freeway was completed in 1993. The four-lane
roadway serves the Highland Industrial Park between Route 146 in Lincoln and Route
122 in Woonsocket. The project’s total coast was $166 million (1990 dollars); maximum
AADT is 17,600, and pre-construction economic impact data are available.
5
Team Members
The Rhode Island team has hired HDR to assist with the testing of the C03 Tools. The
full project team is as follows:

Chris Witt (Rhode Island Division of Planning)

Linsey Callaghan (Rhode Island Division of Planning)

Karen Scott (Rhode Island Division of Planning)

Meredith Brady (Rhode Island Department of Transportation)

Julie Oakley (Rhode Island Department of Transportation)

Marissa Birtz (HDR)

Pamela Yonkin (HDR)
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
6
Anne Galbraith (ASG Planning)
Data and Inputs Needs
The data and input needs for the C03 Tools are not excessive, though they can be
somewhat onerous at such an early stage of planning. To assist the Rhode Island staff
with future use of the tools, the HDR team developed a data needs template highlighting
the mandatory needs for evaluation of particular projects. The data needs template
summarizes the various pieces of information necessary to utilize the tools. It has built-in
demographic information and notes regarding each of the criteria. The template allows
for the incorporation of the five criteria that can be adjusted in My Project Tools as well
as information that can help refine the Case Search selection.
During the testing process, it became clear that due to the limited number of cases in the
database, collecting the additional inputs to further narrow the case study selection was
unnecessary due to the associated reduction in comparison cases when additional data
is added. The placeholders for additional data were held in the data needs template for
future use when additional case studies are incorporated into the web tools.
The template also has places to insert information about the three qualitative measures.
During the testing, these were left blank as well, as there is no clear definition on which
to base information. For the purpose of this analysis, these three measures were left at
their default position in the My Project Tools results, and then also adjusted to the middle
of each slider bar to compare the difference in outputs.
7
Summary of Outputs
Overall, the EconWorks Case Studies tools – both the Case Search and My Project
Tools – were used to examine the impacts of 15 potential highway improvements in
Rhode Island. The table below provides an overview of the project, location, type,
issue/motivation, and impacts generated by My Project Tools. As previously noted, six of
the projects are interchanges in distressed areas that show no impacts. The remaining
nine projects showed a wide range of results with two roadway widening projects
generating the greatest amount of predicted direct economic impacts across all three
metrics. These impacts seemed a bit high. In contrast, an interchange reconfiguration to
allow marine port access generated no benefits despite its direct link to potential
development at the terminal in question.
The general conclusion of the evaluation is that the tool alone did not facilitate a
narrowing of the project options. It does not make sense to support or eliminate any of
the proposed projects due to the results of this analysis. In addition, due to the lack of
comparable case studies, the My Project Tools outputs are somewhat dubious and
should be interpreted carefully. That said, the results may be helpful during the public
outreach process should any of the projects move forward for further study. At a
minimum, they provide an order of magnitude impact range that may be useful in
articulating the relative benefits of different potential investments. The results may also
be helpful for future prioritization efforts when combined with other important metrics,
including travel time savings and improved safety.
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8
Transportation and Economic Analysis in
Rhode Island
The Rhode Island Division of Planning has little experience with the use of formal
economic tools and modeling in its transportation planning work, and thus it has no
specific policies related to the use of economic analysis. The MPO’s lack of experience
in this area was an important reason why it pursued SHRP2 implementation assistance
for the EconWorks Case Studies tools. Previously, the Division of Planning has used
simple estimates of economic impacts in the development of its transportation
improvement program (TIP), but the EconWorks Case Studies tools is the first time
recently that it has worked with more formal economic modeling. Economic impact is a
significant driver of transportation investment, and the Division of Planning would like to
find ways to determine these impacts both for use in project development and
prioritization and in communicating the benefits of transportation projects to policy
makers, elected officials, and the public.
As this report describes, the MPO did not find the EconWorks Case Studies tools useful
in the development of its state freight plan, and it is unlikely to employ them again until
the tools include a more robust, diverse group of case-studies. Moving forward, the
Division of Planning will incorporate cost-benefits analysis into its prioritization of
potential projects in the freight plan as well as results from the C11 tools for
Assessing Wider Economic Benefits of Transportation. It hopes that these approaches
will yield information useful for the freight plan as well as experience in economic
analysis it can apply to future transportation planning efforts such as the long-range
transportation plan, TIP, and transit plans.
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#
Project
Location
Type
Length
(miles)
Issue / Motivation
Cost
($M)
Jobs
Wages/Income
($M)
Output ($M)
1
Route 4 & I-95 SB
East
Greenwich
Interchange
N/A
Marine Port Access &
Congestion Mitigation
$80
0
$0
$0
2
Route 146 & Sayles Hill
Road
North
Smithfield
Interchange
N/A
Congestion Mitigation
$4
1,112 - 1,853
$55.6 - $92.7
$161.0 - $268.0
3
ProvPort to I-95 SB
Providence
Access Road
2.00
Marine Port Access
$10
293 - 488
$14.6 - $24.4
$39.0 - $65.0
4
Airport Road Capacity
Warwick
Access Road
0.75
Air Access
$1
117 - 195
$5.9 - $9.8
$16.9 - $28.2
5
I-295 NB & Route 37
Cranston
Widening
2.80
Congestion Mitigation
$250
2,741 - 4,568
$137.1 - $228.5
$396.8 - $661.3
6
Route 114 & Mink Street
East
Providence
Interchange
N/A
Congestion Mitigation
$2.5
0
$0
$0
7
Woonsocket Main Street Rail
Bridge
Woonsocket
Bridge
0.02
Delivery Market
$1
288 - 481
$14.4 - $24.0
$41.7 - $69.6
8
I-195 Broadway &
Washington River Bridge
East
Providence
Widening
0.70
Congestion Mitigation
$41
4,303 - 7,172
$215.2 - $358.7
$623.0 - $1,038.4
9
NB Access to Route 146 &
State Offices
Providence
Access Road &
Bridge
0.25
Congestion Mitigation
$40
74 - 612
$3.7 - $30.6
$10.7 - $88.6
10
USPS Facility
Providence
Access Road
0.50
Congestion Mitigation
$1
74 - 123
$3.7 - $6.1
$10.6 - $17.7
11
Route 6 at Route 10
Providence
Interchange
N/A
Congestion Mitigation
$400
0
$0
$0
12
Route 6/10 at I-95
Providence
Interchange
N/A
Congestion Mitigation
$65
0
$0
$0
13
Post Road & Route 37
Warwick
Interchange
N/A
Congestion Mitigation
$5
0
$0
$0
14
Route 4 at Oak Hill Road
North
Kingstown
Bridge &
Interchange
~0.8
Congestion Mitigation
$30
1,116 - 3,789
$55.8 - $189.5
$161.6 - $548.5
15
I-95 SB at Exit 14 (Route 37)
Warwick
Interchange
N/A
Congestion Mitigation
$12
0
$0
$0
10 | April 25, 2016