Cost–Benefit Analysis of Rural and Small Urban Transit in the United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 2533 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjit Prasad Godavarthy ◽  
Jeremy Mattson ◽  
Elvis Ndembe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Public Transit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Urban Transit ◽  
Transit Systems ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
True Value ◽  
Benefit Cost

The true value of transit systems in rural and small urban areas in the United States has been largely unmeasured, and there are often effects that go unidentified. Many studies have documented the benefits of urban transit systems with benefit–cost analysis. However, not many have looked into the benefits of transit in rural and small urban areas, where there is a great need for public transit, especially for transportation-disadvantaged individuals. This study focused on evaluating the qualitative and quantitative benefits of rural and small urban public transit systems and analyzed the benefit–cost ratio for rural and small urban transit areas for fixed-route and demand-response services in the United States. Data for rural and small urban transit systems from the national transit database (NTD) and rural NTD were used for calibrating the transit benefits and costs. Results were presented at a national level to show the effects of transit investments in rural and small urban areas nationally. Transit benefits in the United States for 2011 were found to be $1.6 billion for rural transit and $3.7 billion for small urban transit, not including the economic effects. Results showed a benefit–cost ratio of 2.16 for small urban transit and 1.20 for rural transit in the United States. Sensitivity analysis showed that increasing the percentage of forgone trips to 50%, increasing the cost of forgone medical and work trips by 25%, and increasing the percentage of medical trips to 30% substantially increased the total transit benefits by 88%, 20%, and 158%, respectively.

Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) and Velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti) Control in No-Tillage Conventional (Non–genetically engineered) Soybean Using Overlapping Residual Herbicide Programs

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debalin Sarangi ◽  
Amit J. Jhala
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genetically Engineered ◽  
Palmer Amaranth ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
No Tillage ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
No Till ◽  
Benefit Cost ◽  
Herbicide Programs

AbstractDue to depressed corn and soybean prices over the last few years in the United States, growers in Nebraska are showing interest in no-tillage (hereafter referred to as no-till) conventional (non–genetically engineered [non-GE]) soybean production. Due to the increasing number of herbicide-resistant weeds in the United States, weed control in no-till non-GE soybean using POST herbicides is a challenge. The objectives of this study were to compare PRE-only, PRE followed by (fb) POST, and PRE fb POST with residual (POST-WR) herbicide programs for Palmer amaranth and velvetleaf control and soybean injury and yield, as well as to estimate the gross profit margins and benefit–cost ratio of herbicide programs. A field experiment was conducted in 2016 and 2017 at Clay Center, NE. The PRE herbicides tested in this study resulted in ≥95% Palmer amaranth and velvetleaf control at 28 d after PRE (DAPRE). Averaged across the programs, the PRE-only program controlled Palmer amaranth 66%, whereas 86% and 97% control was obtained with the PRE fb POST and PRE fb POST-WR programs, respectively, at 28 d after POST (DAPOST). At 28 DAPOST, the PRE fb POST herbicide programs controlled velvetleaf 94%, whereas the PRE-only program resulted in 85% control. Mixing soil-residual herbicides with foliar-active POST programs did not improve velvetleaf control. Averaged across herbicide programs, PRE fb POST programs increased soybean yield by 10% and 41% in 2016 and 2017, respectively, over the PRE-only programs. Moreover, PRE fb POST-WR programs produced 7% and 40% higher soybean yield in 2016 and 2017, respectively, compared with the PRE fb POST programs. The gross profit margin (US$1,184.3 ha−1) was highest under flumioxazin/pyroxasulfone (PRE) fb fluthiacet-methyl plusS-metolachlor/fomesafen (POST-WR) treatment; however, the benefit–cost ratio was highest (6.1) with the PRE-only program of flumioxazin/chlorimuron-ethyl.

scholarly journals The Benefit-Cost Ratio in Resource Development Planning

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
George A. Pavelis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Resource Development ◽  
Resource Planning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Production Theory ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
Complete Treatment ◽  
Benefit Cost

The stimulus for this article was an observation that resource development in the United States is of a lumpy or whole project-by-project character. We seem to have looked at resource development proposals in isolation from other worthwhile activities and to have been preoccupied with the magnitude of “benefit-cost ratios” in evaluating and comparing individual resource development activities, projects, or programs. Unless properly interpreted, however, such ratios can mislead planners and legislators to invest capital and other inputs in a way that leads to a less than fully efficient pattern of resource development, even where the objective is only to maximize quantifiable monetary benefits. Accordingly, this analysis examines the “benefit-cost ratio” in the context of an income-producing efficiency objective and elementary production theory. Such other currently emphasized objectives as environmental quality improvement are treated implicitly, though not within a multiobjective framework. For a more complete treatment of these see Miller and Holloway [9] who have illustrated an application of multiobjective resource planning principles recently issued by the Water Resources Council [15]. Other particular papers and reports dealing with multiobjective resource development planning are [3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13 and 14].

Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? A Benefit/Cost Analysis of the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Wolf ◽  
Michael McShane
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private School ◽  
The United States ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
Scholarship Program ◽  
Benefit Cost

School voucher programs have become a prominent aspect of the education policy landscape in the United States. The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only federally funded voucher program in the United States. Since 2004 it has offered publicly funded private school vouchers to nearly four thousand students to attend any of seventy-three different private schools in Washington, DC. An official experimental evaluation of the program, sponsored by the federal government's Institute of Education Sciences, found that the students who were awarded Opportunity Scholarships graduated from high school at a rate 12 percentage points higher than the students in the randomized control group. This article estimates the benefit/cost ratio of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, primarily by considering the increased graduation rate that it induced and the estimated positive economic returns to increased educational attainment. We find a benefit to cost ratio of 2.62, or $2.62 in benefits for every dollar spent on the program.

scholarly journals Evaluating Public Programs with Close Substitutes: The Case of Head Start*

2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (4) ◽  
pp. 1795-1848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Kline ◽  
Christopher R. Walters
Keyword(s):  
Head Start ◽  
Test Score ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Public Programs ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Fiscal Impacts ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Benefit Cost

Abstract We use data from the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Head Start, the largest early childhood education program in the United States. Head Start draws roughly a third of its participants from competing preschool programs, many of which receive public funds. We show that accounting for the fiscal impacts of such program substitution pushes estimates of Head Start’s benefit-cost ratio well above one under a wide range of assumptions on the structure of the market for preschool services and the dollar value of test score gains. To parse the program’s test score impacts relative to home care and competing preschools, we selection-correct test scores in each care environment using excluded interactions between experimental assignments and household characteristics. We find that Head Start generates larger test score gains for children who would not otherwise attend preschool and for children who are less likely to participate in the program.

scholarly journals Cost-effectiveness analysis of BNT162b2 COVID-19 booster vaccination in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Li ◽  
Hanting Liu ◽  
Christopher Kit Fairley ◽  
Zhuoru Zou ◽  
Li Xie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Booster Vaccination ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
System Perspective ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
The Cost

Background: Over 86% of older adults aged ≥65 years are fully vaccinated against SARS-COV-2 in the United States (US). Waning protection of the existing vaccines promotes the new vaccination strategies, such as providing a booster shot for those fully vaccinated. Methods: We developed a decision-analytic Markov model of COVID-19 to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a booster strategy of Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 (administered 6 months after 2nd dose) in those aged ≥65 years, from a healthcare system perspective. Findings: Compared with 2-doses of BNT162b2 without a booster, the booster strategy in a 100,000 cohort of older adults would incur an additional cost of $3.4 million, but save $6.7 million in direct medical costs in 180 days. This corresponds to a benefit-cost ratio of 1.95 and a net monetary benefit of $3.4 million. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis indicates that with a COVID-19 incidence of 9.1/100,000 person-day, a booster strategy has a high chance (67%) of being cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness of the booster strategy is highly sensitive to the population incidence of COVID-19, with a cost-effectiveness threshold of 8.1/100,000 person-day. This threshold will increase with a decrease in vaccine and booster efficacies. Doubling the vaccination cost or halving the medical cost for COVID-19 treatment alone would not alter the conclusion of cost-effectiveness, but certain combinations of the two might render the booster strategy not cost-effective. Interpretation: Offering BNT162b2 boosters to older adults aged ≥65 years in the US is likely to be cost-effective. Less efficacious vaccines and boosters may still be cost-effective in settings of high SARS-COV-2 transmission. Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China. Berlina and Bill Gates Foundation

scholarly journals The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on public transit demand in the United States

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. e0242476
Author(s):  
Luyu Liu ◽  
Harvey J. Miller ◽  
Jonathan Scheff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Public Transit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Transit Systems ◽  
Distance Analysis ◽  
Base Points ◽  
Local Spread ◽  
The Us

The COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions led to major transit demand decline for many public transit systems in the United States. This paper is a systematic analysis of the dynamics and dimensions of this unprecedented decline. Using transit demand data derived from a widely used transit navigation app, we fit logistic functions to model the decline in daily demand and derive key parameters: base value, the apparent minimal level of demand and cliff and base points, representing the initial date when transit demand decline began and the final date when the decline rate attenuated. Regression analyses reveal that communities with higher proportions of essential workers, vulnerable populations (African American, Hispanic, Female, and people over 45 years old), and more coronavirus Google searches tend to maintain higher levels of minimal demand during COVID-19. Approximately half of the agencies experienced their decline before the local spread of COVID-19 likely began; most of these are in the US Midwest. Almost no transit systems finished their decline periods before local community spread. We also compare hourly demand profiles for each system before and during COVID-19 using ordinary Procrustes distance analysis. The results show substantial departures from typical weekday hourly demand profiles. Our results provide insights into public transit as an essential service during a pandemic.

scholarly journals Who Decides? Toward a Typology of Transit Governance

Urban Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Lauren Ames Fischer ◽  
Rosalie Singerman Ray ◽  
David A. King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Transit ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Transit Systems

This article describes a typology for formal governance structures of public transit in the United States to support inquiry into how organizational structures influence policy making processes, organizational capacity and policy outcomes. Scholarship of public transit has largely explored outcome-based research while paying less attention to how decisions are made. Despite some transport scholarship that shows how institutional characteristics influence financing, power arrangements and public discourse, there has been little recent analysis of governance within public transit systems beyond the regional role of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Using data from multiple sources, we assembled a database of governance structure of transit systems in the largest 40 cities in the United States. We show that the structure of transit decision making has substantial variance across and within cities, and is far from limited to MPOs. The variety of governance models and growth of local and sub-local models suggest that local context is critical for better understanding transit priorities and decision-making processes.

scholarly journals Benefit–Cost Analysis of Green Roof Initiative Projects: The Case of Jung-gu, Seoul

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunha Shin ◽  
Heungsoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Contingent Valuation Method ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
Benefit Cost

Green roofs, which have various economic, environmental and social effects, have been acknowledged as an alternative green space in urban areas. This study aims to investigate the economic feasibility of green roof projects by conducting a benefit–cost analysis on the case of Jung-gu, Seoul. The analysis estimates and compares five different scenarios applied in the study area with a 20-year operation period in all cases. This set of scenarios aims to compare the most idealistic situation with more achievable and realistic situations, to provide policy implications for green roof initiative projects in Seoul. The analysis consists of estimating six cost items and eight benefit items. Among the benefit items, two non-marketable elements are estimated by the contingent valuation method. The scenario with 100% application of a green roof, has benefits exceeding the costs with a benefit–cost ratio of 1.174. However, the other scenarios with certain prerequisites have a benefit–cost ratio that is very close, but still smaller than 1. Therefore, it is possible to claim that green roof initiative projects are economically viable under specific conditions. However, there are many restrictions to engaging in green roof constructions for entire building rooftops.

Rural Transit Systems Benefits in Tennessee: Methodology and an Empirical Study

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 861-875 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Southworth ◽  
David P Vogt ◽  
T Randall Curlee
Keyword(s):  
Access To Health Care ◽  
The State ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Transit Systems ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
Access To Health ◽  
Transit Services ◽  
Household Activities ◽  
Benefit Cost

This paper describes the application of a detailed benefits assessment framework and sensitivity analysis of the operation of rural public transit services in the state of Tennessee. The paper describes the major components of this benefits framework and its application to the demand-responsive services operated within the state during the 1998/99 fiscal year. An empirical analysis yields a benefit/cost ratio greater than 1.0, with benefits dominated by accessibility gains to current transit patrons through the provision of mobility-enhancing vanpool services. Without these services, the costs of providing an equivalent level of access to health care, job training, and other important household activities would be much higher. Improved and expanded transit rider-based data collection efforts are recommended.

Comparative Effectiveness Of Seed Treating And Foliar Insecticides Against Sucking Pests Of Cotton And Impact On Their Natural Enemies

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
SMA Hossain ◽  
MA Baque ◽  
MR Amin
Keyword(s):  
Natural Enemies ◽  
Untreated Control ◽  
Seed Treatment ◽  
Foliar Spray ◽  
Cost Ratio ◽  
Research Station ◽  
Benefit Cost Ratio ◽  
Benefit Cost ◽  
Thrips Population ◽  
Cotton Cultivar

The Imidacloprid insecticide, Gaucho 70 WS at 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and 5.5 g/kg seed was used as seed treatment and monocrotophos 40 WSC at 1120 ml/ha was applied as foliar spray on CB9 cotton cultivar to suppress aphid, whitefly and thrips, and impact on their natural enemies during 2008-2011 at the Regional Cotton Research Station, Dinajpur, Bangladesh. The activity of natural enemies, such as ladybird beetle, lacewing, syrphid, and spider population on the sucking pests attacking cotton cultivar CB9 and yield of cotton were recorded. Imidacloprid significantly reduced aphid, whitefly, and thrips population on cotton crops compared to untreated control or foliar spray of monocrotophos 40 WSC at 1120 ml/ha. Ladybird beetles, lacewings, syrphids, and spiders were abundant in the field but their population decreased in the treated plots compared to untreated control. The CB9 cotton cultivar produced significantly higher yield (1.73 t/ha) with a benefit cost ratio 12.47 when seeds were treated with Imidacloprid at 5.5 g/kg fuzzy seed. This study indicated that Imidacloprid (Gaucho 70 WS) used as a seed treatment may be suggested to the cotton growers for controlling sucking pests. Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 38(1): 61-70, March 2013 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjar.v38i1.15190

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