In 2014, Decisio was asked to organize a workshop on social cost benefit analysis for bicycle investments for the 8 partners of the EU Cycle Cities program. The workshop took place in Piraeus, Greece. It was attended by urban planners, academics and other professionals in the field of urban mobility. They represented their city within this program.
Decisio made a quick scan social cost benefit analysis on a bike share system which was recently implemented in a part of Athens. Our focus was on explaining the social cost benefit analysis of this project, the methodology and the possibilities of SCBA for the decision making process. In the second part of the workshop we showed some of the assumptions behind the calculations. Questions like “how many people will use the system? how long will they cycle?” were discussed in small groups. From the groups we received feedback that we implemented directly in the model. At the end we were actually performing a cost benefit analysis on site with the whole group!
A workshop like this is a good way to get a feeling of what a social cost benefit analysis can help in your own activities as a spatial planner, politician or mobility professional.
Check also the Decisio website page on Bicycle Economics.