Study On The Formation Mechanism And Quantitative Analysis Of Highway Project Economic Benefits Based On Transportation Demand

According to the fact that current theories and system methods which are used to evaluate the economic benefits of highway projects have the deficiencies that are difficult to be amended or improved partly, this paper attempts to establish a set of new theories and system methods to evaluate the economic benefits account of highway projects. Economic benefits of highway projects can be accounted through two different perspectives:"transportation demand" and "traffic demand". The results will be different according to different perspective. Compared with the traffic behavior, the transportation is more directly related to the national economy and social development. So only through the perspective of transportation demand to study the economic benefits of highway projects, we can catch the fundamental benefits that the highway projects brought to the entire social economy. From this research viewpoint, based on economics, transport economics, econometrics, and regional economics and so on, the paper develops the study according to the following logical orders.According to publicity, elementariness, externality and the public nature of highway projects, the paper introduces that the theoretical basis of the highway projects economic benefits include the consumer surplus and willingness-to-pay theory, the optimal resource allocation theory, the externality theory, the theory of transportation demand, the multiplier theory and the principle of national accounts. Analyzing the generating mechanism of the economic benefits of highway projects is to analyze the internal reasons for the sources of economic benefits of highway projects. The operation of highway infrastructure could enlarge the market scope. On this basis, transportation enable the location of resources to be optimized by the utilization of natural resources, the improvement of transaction efficiency, the optimization of production layout and the adjustment of industrial structure. As a result, it could improve the labor productivity, result in economies of scale, promote the economic growth and bring about an increase of total social products through specialization, economies of scale, and lower production costs.With the identification of the economic benefits of highway projects based on the transportation demand, it can achieve a conclusion that the economic benefits brought to the whole society can be identified as economic efficiency, on the condition of highway projects and by meeting the transportation demand effectively and optimizing the allocation of resources. At present, the account of highway projects only includes saving efficiency, ignoring the output efficiency. The elementariness of highway projects determines that their fundamental purpose is to improve the national economy, carry out the national economic evaluation of highway projects, so the output brought to the entire national economy should be made as the decision-making basis of project constructionBased on the analysis of theoretical basis, this paper comes up with a saving efficiency econometric model which is relative to the operating costs reduction, passenger time savings, money savings by speeding up cargo turnover. Besides, it analyses the efficiency by eliminating the "Of transport barriers" and meeting the cargo transport demand of "No transport barriers" and the measurement methods and econometric models of output efficiency of passenger transportation. Then it brings up an econometric model of passing efficiency of highway projects. At last, this paper tests the theory and models that they are brought up through case studies.The study content of this paper belongs to t practical economy field, which has further enriches and develops the economic evaluation theory of highway projects. To improve the decision-making of highway construction projects more scientifically and normatively, research results of the paper have its significance.