LETA reports that Aecom's investment profitability analysis estimates the investment in the railroad construction to total €1.89 billion at present value. Additional maintenance costs during the life of the project would be €61 million. The railroad's proceeds from use would be €521 million and residual value would total €117 million. According to Aecom, the Rail Baltic railroad project would experience a loss of €1.31 billion.
While according to EY's cost-benefit analysis, the project's investment costs would total €4.2 billion in present value and additional maintenance costs would be €909 million. The revenue from the project would only be €898 million and residual value €255 million, thus the total loss of the project would total €3.96 billion.
Considering the difference in the negative total net gain of the two analyses, the studies cover that loss differently in terms of socio-economic effects.
According to the Aecom analysis, the discounted revenue from an increase in safety in 30 years would be €338 million, from reducing air pollution €148 million , from climate change €342 million. The time saved in passenger carriage would be worth €340 million and in freight carriage €818 million euros, while the profit of railroad carriers would total €690 million. Therefore, the socio-economic impact would amount to €2.68 billion euros, which means that the Rail Baltic project's profitability would be €1.37 billion .
As EY has still not published its analysis, the indicators made available in the expanded summary have to be used. Even though EY estimates the railroad project to potentially have a number of socio-economic effects, those effect have not been highlighted in necessary detail in present value in the summary. EY estimates the socio-economic effects to total €4.58 billion, which is €1.91 billion more than in Aecom's estimation. According to this estimation, the EY analysis shows the railroad project to produce a surplus of €879 million.
Aecom's cost-benefit analysis also highlights the fact that during the railroad's period of operation there should be no need for subsidies, even though they could be beneficial during the start-up period to inspire initial demand, especially for the carriage of goods. The EY analysis highlights the need for a grant of more than €28 million during the first five years of the railroad's operation.
A Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) presented by Ernst & Young came to the conclusion that total socio-economi benefits of the project would total in excess of €16 billion on capital expenditure of nearly €5.7 billion.
Of that amount, 85% or €4.6 bn would come from European Union support with €1.1 bn coming from the governments of the Baltic states.