The Highway Economic Analysis Tool
Economic Development Impacts of Highway Capacity Investment

The Highway Economic Analysis Tool (HEAT) enables agencies to understand the impacts of highway capacity investment on economic development. HEAT incorporates a broad range of quantitative metrics and an objective, consistent analytic process to evaluate the economic benefits of highway improvements.

HEAT is a fully integrated, GIS-based impact analysis model, enabling agencies to assess investments from project definition and travel impacts, to economic and benefit/cost analysis.

HEAT provides:

An industry-based perspective, considering transportation dependence and commodity-specific impacts for individual industries.
A rigorous quantitative method consistently estimates capital and operating cost of highway improvements.
A regional economic simulation model that estimates gross state product, employment, and personal income to determine total economic benefits.
An integrated GIS transportation network model that combines traditional metrics, such as travel time savings and reductions in operating cost with measures of accessibility to markets and network reliability.

For More Information

Christopher Wornum 510-879-4318