National Performance Metrics Comparison of Honolulu’s Elevated Rail and HOT Lane Proposals. Final Score!

Time to add up the scores for Rail and HOT Lanes based on the three NTPP goals and their six metrics that were detailed in the three blog posts below.

While this may sound like a straight forward addition, it is not. The NTPP report does not say that the three goals are equal.

For simplicity, one may assume that the goals of (1) Economic Growth, (2) Energy and Environment, and (3) Safety are equal, so each one has a weight of 33.3%.

Another person may argue that safety is paramount and the other two goals are lesser in importance, so for example Safety has a weight of 50% and the other two have a weight of 25% each.

We can come up with a variety of weighted importance percentages, but to conclude this exercise of transportation alternatives pre-planning let’s summarize the scores using these two summation schemes mentioned above.



The table above clearly shows that based on the 2009 National Transportation Performance Criteria for economic growth, energy, environment and safety, HOT Lanes is a far superior alternative to Elevated Rail.

If we use equal weights of 33.3% for each goal, then HOT Lanes scores 60 points and Elevated Rail scores 27 points. If Safety is worth 50% and the other two goals are worth 25% each, then in total HOT Lanes scores 60 points and Elevated Rail scores 32 points.

Honolulu made the wrong choice in the 2006 Alternatives Analysis when Elevated Rail was chosen as the Locally Preferred Alternative. This evaluation using 2009 NTPP goals shows how big a mistake was made: 20 miles of Elevated Rail will barely be half as good as 10 miles of HOT Lanes.