Employing analytic tools in large-scale engineering public policy-making

This paper examines the interactions of analytic approaches and policy-making for large-scale engineering projects. It is thereby argued that the efficiency of policy-making can be increased if a fruitful synergy between analytical decision analysis and political opinion forming can be achieved and nourished along the whole policy-making life cycle. The discussion is built around the NEAT rail project in Switzerland. Relevant analytic tools are addressed in terms of a newly proposed taxonomy. The appropriateness of those tools is then discussed in terms of the decision makers and environmental characteristics. Ways to improve the synergy between analysis and decisionmaking are based on the study of the life cycle of the project and the potential for successful analytic support.