Economics is used for studying many different topics and questions within transportation. In this research area, we look at how economic theory and economic methods can explain the decisions we make and what this implies for economic policy in the transportation area.
One key topic is identifying the factors that travelers and firms take into account when choosing transport alternatives and measuring the economic benefits they get from improvements in the transport system, for instance transport time savings and increased travel comfort. We also study the costs of emissions, congestions and other costs that transport users impose on others and how these can be mitigated through pricing and fees. Other key topics are car ownership, productivity analysis and air travel.
Norway has a strong tradition for using economic analysis to evaluate large public investment projects. TOI contributes to this by developing methods for analysis, conducting such analyses ourselves and assessing the quality of other studies. We co-operation with Dovre Group AS, TOI has a framework agreement with the Ministry of Finance covering quality assurance studies of the choice of concept (KS1) in large government investments.
