Economic Evaluation of Development Projects on Transportation ROW

The development and application of a computer model for testing the feasibility of multiple agency development projects at proposed transit stations is described. Given a development strategy, the model allocates project costs and revenues among a number of participating entities and uses the `Internal Rate of Return' technique to compute the project returns to each entity. An iterative technique is used to derive the return by converging the numerical value of the `Net Present Worth' of the cash flow to zero by systematically altering the interest rate. The return for each entity is calculated the model in the form of a three dimensional matrix as a function of the type, location and strategy of the project. The model can also estimate annual net return/cost for each entity for a specified interest rate. The study shows that the model can be used to identify optimal development strategies for a given project, economically feasible development projects at a given site, and desirable sites for development projects from a number of possible alternatives.