Socio-economics

Socio-economic impact assessment addresses the economic and societal implications of CCAM, integrating and quantifying its diverse impacts as benefits and costs in order to assess its societal and economic value.

This area assesses the effects of CCAM on societal welfare by quantifying monetary values for both costs and societal benefits across various impact areas. These values provide a basis for evaluating CCAM’s overall contribution to society and its stakeholders. While CCAM can generate benefits, some of these may also result in negative outcomes, referred to as disbenefits.

Socio-economic assessment focuses on how CCAM affects welfare. Welfare can be analysed from societal and stakeholder perspectives, but these analyses must be treated separately, as the magnitude of impacts and the unit costs estimating their economic value differ between the two.

Welfare (or utility) is derived from consumption of goods and services, leisure and well-being. Mobility contributes to welfare, for example via accessibility, but it also incurs costs. These costs are categorised as:

• Direct costs, such as fuel expenses and road toll fees.
• Indirect costs, such as travel or delivery time.

Transport technologies, such as CCAM, can impact welfare by affecting travel costs, traffic flow efficiency, the environment, and other factors. The core task of socio-economic impact assessment is to estimate the societal value of all expected impacts of CCAM. Whenever possible, this societal value is expressed in monetary terms, while non-quantifiable impacts are assessed qualitatively.

The focus is on the net welfare impacts of CCAM for the society, comparing the benefits (including disbenefits) that result from CCAM with the costs it incurs. 

Main components of the socio-economic impact area.