Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change—Guidebook (2020)

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165 Tools evaluated over the course of this project provided some useful insights into components of a comprehensive methodology for comparing adaptation alternatives for extreme weather and climate change using CBA. Tables K-1 through K-4 provide detailed summaries of some of these tools. More comprehensive lists of tools are summarized in Tables K-5 and K-6. A P P E N D I X K Cost-Benefit Analysis Tools Tool Name/Screenshot Details BCA.net BCA.net compares highway management and improvement scenarios and provides sensitivity analysis, allowing users to explore how benefits change in response to inputs. Produces estimates for total benefits, total costs, net benefit, BCR, and rate of return. Applicability: Web-based (reducing potential IT security issues), tabular inputs and outputs, data inputs are commonly available design and performance statistics, compares multiple strategies across varying scenarios, values a variety of benefits. Usability Challenges: Confined to highway projects (resurfacing, widening, adding lanes, reversible lanes, and combinations thereof), project level only. Surface Transportation Efficiency Analysis Model (STEAM) STEAM assesses multimodal infrastructure alternatives as well as policy alternatives. Produces estimates for net present worth and BCR. Applicability: Estimates infrastructure and operating costs, compatible with typical travel-demand management software, has a strong framework considering livability and accessibility, regional-level analysis. Considers Automobiles/carpool, Truck, Local bus/express bus, Light rail, and Heavy rail. Table K-1. Cost analysis tools for infrastructure investment in the transportation sector. (continued on next page)

166 Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change—Guidebook Tool Name/Screenshot Details Usability Challenges: Desktop-based application built in the late 1990s and last versioned in the early 2000s; somewhat cumbersome manual input required for multiple alternatives analyses. National Bridge Investment Analysis System (NBIAS) NBIAS is a national-level tool predicting the conditions and performance of the bridges in the National Bridge Inventory. Related: HERS and HERS-ST, which focus on roadways (similar user cost parameters). Applicability: Provides system-level (in this case, national) benefit-cost analyses on maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation work to be performed; condition deterioration probability curves vary based on (stationary) climate zones; produces useful enterprise- level statistics on funding needs, backlog, structural deficiencies, and user benefits; uses readily available NBI data (and will incorporate National Bridge Element Data to comply with MAP-21). Usability Challenges: Single-asset, outputs may be of limited use at the project level, conditions and performance alternatives analysis is supported but analysis of impact of various types of replacements is not supported (e.g., “replacement” recommendation is implicitly replace-in-kind). RealCost v2.5 RealCost v2.5 is a desktop-based, project-level life-cycle analysis tool with alternatives analysis for highway projects Related: Bridge-specific life-cycle analysis: Pontis (older but still in use); NIST’s BLCC; FHWA’s BLCCA. Applicability: Indicates both agency cost and user costs for various alternatives, includes costs and performance characteristics related to work zones; is intended to support alternatives analysis for up to six different structural designs. Usability Challenges: Single-asset roadway geometry must be identical for all alternatives (important for LCCA best practices but problematic when adaptation alternatives may include reconfiguring or relocating roadways), desktop-based Excel with VBA likely to cause IT security conflicts; current version appears incompatible with Excel 2013. Table K-1. (Continued).

Cost-Benefit Analysis Tools 167 Tool Name/Screenshot Details Caltrans California Life-Cycle Benefit/ Cost Analysis Model Caltrans California Life Cycle Benefit/Cost Analysis Model analyzes capacity-expansion projects for several modes. Estimates NPV, BCR, rate of return, and project payback period. Applicability: Handles road, rail, transit, and combinations thereof; includes a module compatible with federal grant requirements (TIGER); has evolved to support project-, network-, and corridor-level analyses. The current build (v5.0) also supports analysis of operational improvements and transportation management systems. Usability Challenges: Model default values are California-centric; asset life cycle is fixed at 20 years (not suitable for bridges or other long–life cycle structures); can be unclear when project-, corridor-, or network-level analysis is needed; desktop-based Excel with macros likely to cause IT security conflicts. Table K-1. (Continued). Tool Name/Screenshot Details TOPS-BC TOPS-BC: Tool for Operations Benefit/Cost (2013), a sketch- level decision support tool developed to use the FHWA’s guidance on benefit-cost. Related: Operations Benefit/Cost Analysis Desk Reference; Road Weather Management Cost Benefit Analysis Compendium. Applicability: Establishes the benefits of road weather management with respect to operational considerations (travel time, travel time reliability, crashes). Usability Challenges: Limited to roadway assets. Existing case studies are not typically multi-hazard (i.e., winter weather dominates). Does not consider changing climate. Clear Roads BC Toolkit (updated 2013): Estimates the benefits and costs of practices, equipment, and operations related to winter weather. Applicability: Establishes the benefits of winter maintenance activities. Usability Challenges: Limited to roadway assets. Focuses solely on winter weather. Does not consider changing climate. Clear Roads BC Toolkit Table K-2. Weather-related CBA tools for the transportation sector.

168 Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change—Guidebook Table K-3. Hazard mitigation CBA tools relevant to the transportation sector. Tool Name/Screenshot Details CAPTool CAPTool is a spreadsheet tool designed to capture capital and operations costs for transportation hazard mitigation activities. Applicability: Considers extreme weather; strategies organized by asset, mode, or hazard; multimodal and all- hazards; alternatives analysis; analysis based on agency- defined risk thresholds; provides enterprise-level and asset-specific summary; considers capital and operating costs. Usability Challenges: Provides cost of countermeasure but no quantification of benefit (framework is “impacts mitigated” rather than losses or damages avoided); does not distinguish type of extreme weather; desktop-based Excel with macros likely to cause IT security conflicts. The multi-hazard FEMA BCA Tool allows analysis of multiple assets for a single mitigation project; support for analyzing impacts of sea level rise, and some consideration of social/environmental benefits as well as traditional benefit categories (avoided structure damage, contents damage, and displacement/service losses for utilities, roads, and bridges). Applicability: Multi-hazard, allows analysis of multiple assets for a single mitigation project, support for analyzing impacts of sea level rise, some consideration of social and environmental benefits. Related: HAZUS-MH, which has fragility curves for building structures that can develop loss estimates for earthquake, high wind, and floods, which may be useful as a CBA input. FEMA BCA Tool Usability Challenges: Cumbersome to run multiple alternatives analyses or hazard scenarios; cannot easily compare alternatives across hazards (changing climate is characterized by multiple changes to design-relevant characteristics simultaneously); assumes stationary recurrence intervals (with changing climate, recurrence intervals shift over time, i.e., non-stationarity); does not offer comparison against a “no-build” scenario; benefits are solely damages avoided (not multi-objective). USACE Flood Damage Reduction Analysis (HEC-FDA) HEC-FDA is a tool to assess the effectiveness of a project from both a risk perspective and an economic perspective. Applicability: Computes both hazard risk reduction and economic aspects of alternatives. Usability Challenges: Single hazard, not developed for transportation sector (roads have to be treated as a “pseudo-structure”); project performance is assessed over return period and not asset life cycle; stationary return periods; output is damages (thus damages avoided are the only benefit that can be computed).

Cost-Benefit Analysis Tools 169 Table K-3. (Continued). The FTA HMCE Tool is designed for transit resilience projects with FTA hazard mitigation grant programs. Provides CBAs for floods, hurricanes, and coastal storms using a methodology based on the FEMA BCA Tool damage-frequency assessment option. Provides benefits, costs, and BCR as well as inputs to include other benefits such as lost transit revenue. Applicability: Simplified tool that allows analysis of a single transit mitigation project, and includes a supplemental calculator to adjust coastal flood recurrence internals to account for sea level rise impacts and detailed considerations of avoided physical damages as well as socioeconomic impacts of lost transit service. Usability Challenges: Cumbersome to run multiple alternatives analyses or hazard scenarios; cannot easily compare alternatives across hazards; assumes stationary recurrence intervals (with changing climate, recurrence intervals shift over time, i.e., non-stationarity); does not automatically offer comparison against a “no-build” scenario; benefits are solely damages avoided (not multi- objective); current version has limited geography (East Coast from New England to Mid-Atlantic states) FTA HMCE Tool Tool Name/Screenshot Details

170 Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change—Guidebook Table K-4. Climate-resilience CBA tools relevant to the transportation sector. Tool Name/Screenshot Details NOAA Port Tomorrow Resilience Planning Tool Prototype NOAA Port Tomorrow Resilience Planning Tool Prototype. Although no longer maintained, this tool compiled resiliency summaries and checklists for ports. Applicability: Useful vulnerability characteristics, such as indicating whether ports were NOAA storm- or tsunami-ready, and depicting high-traffic navigation areas as well as hazardous materials incident statistics. Summaries of livability and economic development activities. Usability Challenges: Not cross-asset, not quantitative, does not explicitly account for changing climate, no longer maintained. The Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool was designed by EPA and developed principally for water resources managers and planners in coastal locales. Applicability: Operations-focused; support for low-impact development (LID) and green infrastructure stormwater best management practices; incorporates metrics for cost- effectiveness, environmental aspects, and sustainability; considers a range of climate scenarios. Usability Challenges: Focuses solely on water resources and land use management, local/single watershed only. U.S. Climate Resiliency Toolkit Beach-fx U.S. Climate Resiliency Toolkit Beach-fx is a USACE tool evaluating performance, cost, and benefits of activities to mitigate erosion, inundation, and wave damage. Applicability: Considers various damage categories (erosion, inundation, and wave impact); evaluates alternatives; considers economic consequences as well as losses from direct damage; considers local storm record, considers effect of local morphology on storm impact. Usability Challenges: Coastal resources only, focus on assets or programs with a primary function of protection (nourishment, shoreline structures), does not consider changing climate. Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool

Cost-Benefit Analysis Tools 171 The tools listed in Table K-5 are in the public domain, commonly used at state transportation agencies, quantitative, developed, and in use in the past 15–20 years. Some DOTs may lack an all-assets asset catalogue. For example, bridge culverts and non-bridge culverts may be kept in separate databases, such as Pontis and Maximo, respectively. Links are either to tool documen- tation (particularly in the case of older or proprietary tools that do not have public downloads available), or tool download locations, where available. An un-linked tool name indicates that current documentation and downloads are not available. Based on this assessment, it appears that most hazard mitigation tools (Table K-6) account for impacts to the capital budget, but not necessarily the operating budget. CAPTool is an exception, providing estimates for both. Table K-4. (Continued). COAST COAST is a proprietary but freely available tool for comparing benefits and costs of proposed adaptation alternatives in the coastal environment and has been used successfully by MaineDOT. Applicability: Geospatially enabled to capture the extent of the hazard being examined; evaluates alternatives; computes losses over the life cycle of infrastructure (cumulative losses); losses evaluated include direct losses as well as impacts to economic output, displaced persons, and impacts to cultural and natural resources. Usability Challenges: Exclusively considers coastal impacts and adaptations, limited to examining one scenario at a time, use of the software may require significant support from the development team. Tool Name/Screenshot Details

172 Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change—Guidebook Tool Developed By Infrastructure/ Operational Focus Considers Asset Management Level (asset/corridor/network) Project/Program Level AASHTO Red Book AASHTO Infrastructure Highway (Operational) Asset Project AASHTOWare Project (was TRNS*PORT) AASHTO Operations Construction Asset Project AssetManager NT NCHRP Infrastructure Highway; Bridge Network Program AssetManager PT NCHRP Infrastructure Highway; Bridge Network Program BCAnalysis Florida DOT Both Highway Asset Project BCA.Net FHWA Infrastructure Highway Asset Project BLCCA NCHRP Infrastructure Bridge Asset Project Cal-B/C Caltrans Infrastructure Highway; Transit Asset/Corridor/Network Project; Program CIMS (Culvert Information Management System) NJDOT Infrastructure Culvert Asset/Network Program Clear Roads BC Toolkit Clear Roads Consortium Operations Highway Network Program COMMUTER EPA Operations Highway (Emissions) Network Program DIETT NCHRP Operations Bridges and Tunnels Network Program EMFITS NYSDOT Both Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Network Program FITSEval Florida DOT Both ITS Network Program HDM-4 HDMGlobal/ World Bank Infrastructure Highway Asset/Corridor/Network Project; Program HERS-ST FHWA Infrastructure Highway Network Program IDAS FHWA Both ITS Network Program IMPACTS FHWA Infrastructure Multimodal Corridor Program Interactive Interchange Management System SCDOT Infrastructure Highway; Bridge Network Program MBCA TREDIS Infrastructure Multimodal Asset Project MicroBENCOST NCHRP Infrastructure Highway; Safety Corridor Project MOOS Bridge Level NCHRP Infrastructure Bridge Asset Project MOOS Network Level NCHRP Infrastructure Bridge Network Program NBIAS FHWA Infrastructure Bridge Network Program PONTIS (now AASHTOWare Bridge Management) AASHTO Infrastructure Bridge Network Project; Program REALCOST FHWA Infrastructure Highway Asset Project Smart Roadside AASHTO Infrastructure ITS Asset Project SCRITS FHWA Both ITS Network Program STEAM FHWA Infrastructure Multimodal Corridor Project StratBENCOST NCHRP Infrastructure Highway Asset/Network Project TIM-BC FHWA Operations Highway (Incident Management) Network Program TOPS-BC FHWA Operations Highway Network Program TransValU FDOT District Five Both Multimodal Corridor Project; Program TRIMMS CUTR, University of South Florida Operations Highway Network Program Table K-5. Capital-improvement and operations tools (Venner, 2014).

Table K-6. Hazard mitigation, CCA, resilience, and sustainability tools. Tool Developed By Infrastructure/ Operational Focus Framework Type Developed for (or including) Transportation Sector (Y/N) Considers Geographic Scale Beach-fx USACE Infrastructure Resiliency No Protective structures; coastal hazards Sub-state (coastal) Blowing Snow Control Tools MnDOT and UM Extension Operations Resiliency Yes Snow fences Sub-state Business Case Evaluator— Transit Module Impact Infrastructure Infrastructure Sustainability Yes Sustainability of new or retrofitted transit infrastructure Local CAPTool FHWA Infrastructure Hazard Mitigation Yes Cross-asset; examines multiple assets simultaneously; multi- hazard Regional, state, or local COAST Blue Marble Geographics Infrastructure Resiliency No Life-cycle benefit-cost analysis for infrastructure alternatives, including no- build. Cumulative loss avoidance over various climate scenarios. Sub-state (coastal) FEMA BCA Tool FEMA Infrastructure Hazard Mitigation No Multi-hazard; potentially cross-asset Sub-state FTA HMCE Tool FTA Infrastructure Resiliency Yes Multi-hazard; coastal flood recurrence/SLR, physical damages; lost transit service Regional, state, or local HEC-FDA USACE Infrastructure Hazard Mitigation No Coastal hazards; examines multiple assets simultaneously Sub-state (coastal) Ecosystem services values (e.g., water regulation, moderation of extreme events, air quality, climate stability) IPSS Resilient Analytics Infrastructure Resiliency Yes Evaluate investment options for various climate scenarios and build dates throughout an infrastructure network Regional, state, or local iTree USDAA Forest Service Operations Sustainability No (except iTree Streets) Ecosystem services values for trees and forests (water quality, air quality, carbon sinks) Local NIST EDGe$ National Institute for Standards and Technology Infrastructure Resiliency Yes Benefit-cost analysis of community resilience adaptation strategies Regional, state, or local PRISM WSP Operations Sustainability Yes Triple bottom-line (sustainability) valuation of transportation projects Regional, state, or local SERVES Earth Economics Operations Sustainability No Ecosystem services values (e.g., water regulation, moderation of extreme events, air quality, climate stability) NA (prototype) Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool EPA Operations Resiliency No Watershed management strategies; multiple climate scenarios and time frames Sub-state (coastal) Sub-state InVEST Natural Capital Project Operations Sustainability No