Railway investments often represent huge public spending
commitments, and hence it should be uncontroversial that
decision-makers need reliable appraisal methods for comparing
suggested investments against each other and against other uses
of public resources. In this paper, we have argued that having an
explicit, verifiable
principle for timetable construction is necessary
for CBA to be meaningful. Without such a principle, and a way of
verifying that it is applied, CBA for railway investments will be a
pointless exercise. In the worst case, it becomes an instrument for
lobbyist wolves dressed in the sheepish clothes of transport
economists.