Events

Cost benefits analysis (CBA) is regularly used to evaluate transport investment decisions. Current practices tend to be biased in several ways: They focus on motorised vehicles and savings of travel time which can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: time gains, often based on optimistic assumptions, will justify investments. Community goals related to accessibility, health and liveability are often overlooked or undervalued. Given the lack of comparison of investment decisions – high-speed railway systems, active mobility in cities, these biases can result in suboptimal investments that fail to reflect community demands.

The workshop seeks to critically review the value of travel time and its uses in the updated European Handbook on the external cost of transport, the use of discounting with relevance for key parameters such as climate change or air pollution. Specifically, the workshop will discuss whether cost-benefit analyses should only be used in transport planning processes that already have a focus on increasing accessibility, health and liveability, i.e., to assess the effectiveness of investments with these overarching objectives.

The event is public. It is an online event. Please connect through this link.

Please find all the details and agenda here.

DATE: 3rd December 2024 9:30-17:00 (CET).
VENUE: Online

Cost-benefit analyses (CBA) are used to assess economic efficiency, comparing costs and benefits in monetary terms. CBA are employed to assess environmental, social, regulatory, health, and transport-related costs. Within UBD, different frameworks have relevance. Social CBA focuses on social impacts and welfare changes, including equity and distributional aspects that can be based on both quantitative and qualitative analyses (such as multi-criteria decision analysis) to assess outcomes. Regulatory CBA is primarily used by government agencies to evaluate the costs and benefits of policies on consumers, businesses, and other stakeholders. Health-focused CBA assesses the health outcomes of interventions, often using measures like Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) or Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs).

Transport CBA evaluates changes in transport infrastructure, considering parameters such as time savings, climate change, or air pollution. The workshop initiates discussions at the intersection of the various CBA methodologies. Transport CBA approaches currently seem to cover the greatest number of parameters, even though there are persistent uncertainties regarding unit costs (traffic fatalities and injuries; travel time value) as well as indirect outcomes of transport system change that remain insufficiently understood and incorporated. More far-reaching is the question of whether CBA is still a timely approach to evaluation, as there is limited evidence that it is used in comprehensive ways and that political decisions rarely consider “inconvenient” outcomes.

The workshop seeks to discuss the complexities, and to make recommendations for comprehensive, transdisciplinary CBA – or alternatives – that can guide policymakers. It also seeks to make suggestions for the standardization of approaches to increase comparability and streamline result integration into planning and decision-making at the city level.

The event is public. It is an online event. Please connect through this link.

Please find all the details and agenda here.

DATE: 9th of April 2024 from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM (CET).
VENUE: Online

In this workshop, UBDPolicy aims to facilitate discussions among experts and stakeholders on the indicators used in Health Impact Assessments (HIA). They will explore how these indicators are perceived by stakeholders, identify gaps, and discuss methods of integrating well-being into HIA. Additionally, they plan to develop a pilot survey to gather insights on how different indicators are rated by experts and stakeholders, and will collect valuable feedback on the survey.

The event is public. It is a hybrid event, you can attend online or in person in Utrecht. If you would like to participate please contact us through the UBDPolicy contact page.

Please find all details and agenda here.

DATE: 18-19 March 2024 from 9:00 AM to 16:30 PM (CET).
VENUE: Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The EU-funded research project Urban Burden of Disease Estimation for Policy-making (UBDPolicy), which aims to estimate the health and socio-economic costs and benefits of air quality, noise, lack of urban green spaces, heat and temperature, physical activity and inequality for almost 1000 European cities in the EU.

The city of Zagreb has been selected as one of 10 cities for which a detailed assessment of health costs and benefits will be carried out, and UBDPolicy is now seeking the expertise of decision-makers, administrators and stakeholders on the scenarios and findings of the research.

Benefits of participation for decision-makers and stakeholders:

• Exclusive access to existing and new data showing the health benefits of different urban environmental and transport policies, which can be used to communicate with the public.
• Health cost-benefit analyses that can be used to inform policy design and implementation
• The ability to provide guidance to researchers on which data are most needed for current and future policy making.

During the workshop, we will explore possible health and well-being scenarios that are relevant for the preparation or evaluation of current and future policies and strategies in Zagreb (e.g. climate neutrality by 2030, low emission zone and others). For example, health impact assessment of xx% increase in number of cyclists/cycling infrastructure or any other measure.

DATE: 13 February 2024 from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM (CET).
VENUE: Radićeva Street 9, Zagreb.

The event is open to the public, only in person in Zagreb. If you would like to attend, please complete the registration form.

The workshop will be held in Croatian and English. Simultaneous interpretation from Croatian to English and vice versa will be provided.

On #WorldCitiesDay 2023, join the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) for a special webinar on the latest evidence on how people’s health in cities is affected by air pollution, noise, lack of green space, climate change, and inequalities, and how policy makers can respond to these health threats.

A new EU-funded research project Urban Burden of Disease Estimation for Policy-making (UBDPolicy), coordinated by ISGlobal, will assess the health and socioeconomic costs of environmental conditions in nearly 1,000 European cities across the EU. It will offer policy recommendations for urban and transport planning, transport, and local environmental policies to improve health.

UBDPolicy aims to facilitate the stakeholder dialogue to strengthen the uptake of health impact assessments in policy making and city planning at all levels.

The Webinar will take place 31 October 10-11am CET. Register here.