Neil Douglas is a transport economist with over thirty years academic and consultancy experience. Neil has a PhD in economics examining the welfare effects of transport deregulation. Neil has completed over 250 projects in twelve countries and offers considerable expertise in cost-benefit analysis, economic impact assessment, demand and cost forecasting, externality and resource economics, the private sector financing of transport infrastructure and the economic theory of markets and regulatory policy. He is also an expert in survey methods and the use of survey methods in economic analysis including the valuation of non-market benefits.
Neil has provided advice to Australian and NZ governments and to private sector clients about rail, bus, ferry and road transport, ports and airports and covering freight and passenger services including cruise ship tourism. Neil has published 90 articles and conference papers. A particular interest is valuing transport attributes. A 2018 review of world experts by Monash University ranked Neil as the leading practitioner. In 2019, Neil was elected Vice President of the Australasian Transport Research Forum. Neil is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
Neil has business experience from developed a large 150 seat cafe located on Wellington’s waterfront employing 45 staff and achieving annual turnover exceeding $NZ 2 million. The café won awards for best cafe in New Zealand and most popular cafe in Wellington. Since 2002, Neil has developed Totara Nut Farm planting almond, chestnut, hazelnut, pecan, pine nut and walnut trees amongst covenanted Totara trees. Since 2016, Neil has been chairperson of the Wairarapa Tree Crops Association.
Recent engagements
- Demand forecasts and toll revenue forecasts for a $2 billion radial Wellington road
- Sunshine Coast Rail Corridor: Review for KPMG of South East QLD 4 Stage Model in context of forecasting demand for fast rail services between Maroochydore and Brisbane.
- Brisbane Cross River Rail Project Peer Review
- Peer review for the DTMR Queensland of the Economic Evaluation of the ETCS and Cross River Rail projects.
- BAT Brisbane Peer Review – Peer review of the Business Case for a proposed underground bus and rail S-N tunnel.
- Temora By-pass: Assisting Transport Modelling Pty undertake a traffic and economic appraisal for Temora Shire Council of road options for trucks to bypass Temora town centre.
- Review of NSW/Australia & NZ Economic Appraisal: Review of economic appraisal in NZ and NSW/Australia as part of an international benchmarking study for UK Department of Transport of public transport, freight and road (including toll road) assessment techniques.
- TfNSW Model Peer Review: Review of TfNSW Transport Models for forecasting major projects such as Sydney Metro and CBD-SE LRT.