An ex-ante economic and environmental assessment of railway intervention: A case study in Regione Lombardia

The present case study aims to enrich the discussion on Conventional Rail (CR) interventions, investigating two types of solutions, a frequency increase and a new station construction, in two different contexts, respectively, characterised by high and low demands. The area of investigation is Regione Lombardia (Italy). We combine a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) and a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to estimate economic and environmental viability. We find different performances according to the scenarios. In the high-demand area, a Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) larger than 1 is observed in both interventions, while in the low-demand area, the BCR is significantly lower than 1. For the emissions, the implementation of the interventions shows almost a net balance of zero between the emissions saved and the additional emissions produced. Sensitivity analyses varying the critical variables (i.e., demand diverted, investment costs, and emission factors) are performed. The diverted demand results in being critical to improve both performances, whereas a mutually beneficial approach that combines environmental and transport policies is essential to reduce transport emissions. The following study contributes to academia by comparing the expected effects of different railway interventions in a CR system, using a combined economic and environmental assessment for their evaluation.