Relevance

Relevance of the project

As very little research has been carried out with regard to overall uncertainties of decision support systems within the transport sector, the research is expected to have large impacts in the transport research society. An indication of this is that the American Association of Planners now recommends the use of the reference forecast methods based on results of Bent Flyvbjerg's research. This, however, “only” compensates for the recognised bias of models. The aim of the present project is to identify, explain and avoid the systematic biases of decision support models, leading to unbiased decision support, and to develop methods that can quantify the uncertainties of cost-estimates, transport models and decision support. This will be a major achievement in research, as well as in applied model use, decision support and real life transport policy in Denmark and in other countries.

 

With regard to Danish practice, The Danish Transport Infrastructure Commission (2008) pinpoints a need for better traffic forecast models, although they had to rely, due to lack of alternative approaches, on a simplified approach and model, they themselves criticized.