FLOW Impact Assessment Tool

Summary

Currently, many cities do not have standardised evaluation methodologies for non-motorised measures. The offered FLOW assessment procedure gives the cities across Europe the possibility to better evaluate a wide range of effects across multiple disciplines. This is achieved by placing the congestion reduction potential of walking and cycling in the foreground, and at the same time covering environmental, social and economic aspects within one integrated tool. In this manner, the developed multi-modal indicators are able to measure the impacts on the transport network performance, but also on the environment, society and economy for all transport modes. This innovative approach goes beyond the state of the art.

An assessment procedure typically consists of three steps. First an integrated target system was developed in the context of FLOW, referring to the objectives of the cities. This target system served as a basis for the determination of the whole set of indicators in the second step, which constitutes the core element of the developments. Depending on the local political objectives of the city, and also, whether required data is obtainable, FLOW offers different multi-modal approaches for aggregating the impacts of walking and cycling measures, whereby the city can select, which suits the best to its priorities:

• Multi-criteria analysis (MCA)
• Weighted benefit analysis (WBA)
• Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
• Qualitative appraisal (only as add-on to CBA)

The complexity of the FLOW impact assessment methodology allows to cover both qualitative and quantitative impacts that various walking and cycling measures can have. Moreover, the developed tool is applicable to both ex-ante assessments and ex-post evaluations. In this manner, effects of hard measures, such as infrastructure investments (e.g. bike lanes, cycle highways or squares), as well as soft measures (e.g. mobility management campaigns) can be both appraised. The impact assessment tool was developed in an iterative process in close cooperation with the FLOW partner cities, where they were assigned the role of testing the appropriateness of the tool and provide feedback on the applicability of the indicators.

See also the guidelines for using the FLOW Impact Assessment Tool here: http://h2020-flow.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/FLOW_D2.4_Guidelines_PTV_FIN…