Sorry for the late reply. I don't remember the name of the presenter, and I'm having a hard time googling the event. As an absolute stab in the dark it could have been Kieran Arter, but definitely don't quote me on that. The presenter was definitely English and probably not white. He was just stopping through and giving a quick talk about the project (possibly also doing the same thing in Sydney?)

There were two talks on transport economics, the first quite general and the second on Crossrail. My notes on the second presentation, hopefully somewhat meaningful:

"Cross-rail: Wider economic benefits"

- Biggest infrastructure project GB has done. ~16M GBP, good BCR, but lots of smaller, "less risky" projects with worse BCRs have been getting built anyway.

Rail is very expensive. Often most expensive infrastructure project. Usually lose money on them, often lose money on them forever. Almost never repay any investment.

3 lines build since the '60s, BCR all <1: Jubilee Extension, Fleet st sometihng, something else. ThamesLink and CrossRail have consistently had BCRs >2, but couldn't build due to opposition.

Productivity gains:

- agglomeration. Cities are good for business.

- biger employee pool/labour market.

- Product market - supply specialisation, drive to compete. (Not only provider in area)

- "Knowledge spillover" - ideas spread fast. Conferences, gossip, recruiters, recruiting from competitors often.

Also: Move to more productive jobs (M2MPJ). Relieves capacity constraint. Need to prove it works, though, which is hard to do. Big win, though.

Big value differential in jobs in city/suburbs. Melbourne average salary difference is 75k:50k.

"M2MPJ" --> "Absolute density"

"Pure agglomeration" --> "Effective density"

Other things.

BCR guys were forced to assume no socio-economic benefits (an economic efficiency assumption, I think - don't want any double-counting). The argument goes that if the improvement in commute times makes someone change their job, then the difference in utility between the old job and the new job can be at most the utility gained in travel time savings. Presenter's argument is that people aren't logical homo economicus, I think.

Still argue to be able to measure a win from these benefits, though, through a "tax wedge". Commuters are indifferent to things after tax, so differences before tax can go to treasury. I don't understand this completely, but the idea seems reasonable (if a little contrived). Makes an important difference.

Wider Economic Benefits ("WEB") push the BCR from 1.8 to 3-5. Huuge change, turns it from a good project to a "do this now" project.

Presenter argued for WEB things to be included in the "Wider Benefits Working Group" (govt thing). Some things got in, other things got rejected. Got enough, though, project got funded.

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Transport benefits not enough for rail projects - "Investment in growth" is/should be a higher priority.

Imperfections in the market allow for this. There are real value differences not explained by the "pure" economic theories.

Work with market w. economic policy. The old "satellite town" idea didn't really catch on in London, was a top-down decisionthat didn't address the real needs.

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Erm, hope this was interesting.