The Role of Cost-benefit Analysis Cost-benefit analysis achieves makes numerous and varied effects commensurate by quantifying them in terms of monetary equivalents. For example, methods are available to estimate the monetary value of travel-time savings or of newly attracted trips, and to compare costs and benefits occurring at widely different points in time. Furthermore, costs and benefits can sometimes be traced to particular income, ethnic, or occupational groups so that the effect on the distribution of real incomes (ie, on standards of living) can be described