What are the prospects for privatizing infrastructure? Lessons from U. S. roads and solid waste

Infrastructure (Economics) ; Roads

Alternatives to infrastructure privatization revisited : public enterprise reform from the1960s to the 1980s

Frustration with the performance of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) has led to two rounds of reform: the first round, from the 1960s through the 1980s, attempted to improve SOE performance while maintaining public ownership while the second, beginning in the late 1980s, viewed privatization as the answer. Interest in the earlier round of reform has increased recently as controversy has slowed or halted privatization in many countries, especially for SOEs providing infrastructure services that are basic to everyday life and are thought to have elements of monopoly. This paper reexamines the earlier round of reforms, focusing particularly on efforts to increase the firms'capacity with infusions of human and physical capital, to strengthen managerial incentives through performance contracts and corporatization and to alter the mix of political and economic forces that impinge on the firm by strengthening the involvement of taxpayers, customers or private investors. The review suggests that these earlier approaches generated only modest success but that some of them, selectively applied, may be helpful in improving the performance of infrastructure firms that remain in public hands.Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Microfinance,Private Participation in Infrastructure,E-Business

Toll-managed lane pioneers: Lessons from five US states

Toll-managed lanes have become an increasingly popular technique among transportation policymakers for managing congestion on existing highways and, in some cases, financing the construction of new lanes in congested urban corridors. Although growing in popularity, the adoption of these facilities is concentrated in five states: Texas, California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Florida. This paper examines the adoption and utilization of toll-managed lanes in these pioneer states. Using archival, case-based research, our analysis suggests that the adoption of toll-managed lanes was driven by a combination of factors, including rapid population growth, near or above average growth in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and insufficient gas tax funding for transportation investments. Implementation was also generally similar across states but some of the pioneers delegated the management of their toll-managed lane programs to special regional highway authorities while others used state highway agencies

Natural R-Parity, \mu-term, and Fermion Mass Hierarchy From Discrete Gauge Symmetries

In the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model with seesaw neutrino masses we show how R-parity can emerge naturally as a discrete gauge symmetry. The same discrete symmetry explains the smallness of the \mu-term (the Higgsino mass parameter) via the Giudice--Masiero mechanism. The discrete gauge anomalies are cancelled by a discrete version of the Green--Schwarz mechanism. The simplest symmetry group is found to be Z_4 with a charge assignment that is compatible with grand unification. Several other Z_N gauge symmetries are found for N=10,12,18,36 etc, with some models employing discrete anomaly cancellation at higher Kac-Moody levels. Allowing for a flavor structure in Z_N, we show that the same gauge symmetry can also explain the observed hierarchy in the fermion masses and mixings.Comment: 22 pages, LaTe

Toll-Managed Lanes: Benefit-Cost Analyses of Seven Projects. Year 25 Final Report

Toll managed lanes are expressway lanes where tolls are used--often in combination with preferred access for high occupancy vehicles and other special traffic management techniques-- to improve the highway’s capacity, speed or reliability. Such lanes, and particularly a variant called High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes, have become popular with transportation policymakers as a way of maintaining free-flowing traffic on existing lanes while also, in some cases, financing the construction of new lanes in congested urban areas. This study examines whether toll-managed lanes are as beneficial as they are popular. The heart of the analysis is the application of a simplified social benefit-cost analysis to seven projects. In brief, the results suggest that toll-managed lanes, while promising, are not a surefire strategy for managing congestion. Only two of the seven projects have benefit-cost ratios above 1.0 using our base case assumptions about the value of travel time saved and the discount rate, although three others approach or exceed 1.0 with more optimistic but plausible assumptions. The most successful generate not only a significant savings of around 4 to 5 minutes per trip for motorists who switch to the managed lane but also smaller per-trip savings for the large majority of motorists who continue to use the general-purpose lanes. It is important to acknowledge, however, that these calculations depend upon some uncertain assumptions about the value of travel time savings and improved reliability

Ball possession effectiveness in men's and women's elite basketball according to situational variables in different game periods

The aim of the present study was to identify the importance of floorball tactical variables to predict ball possession effectiveness, when controlling quality of opposition and game periods. The sample was composed by 1500 ball possessions, corresponding to 14 games randomly selected from the International Championships played during 2008 and 2010 (World Championship, Four nations tournament and classificatory phases for World Championship) by teams from different competition levels (HIGH, INTERMEDIATE and LOW). The effects of the predictor variables on successful ball possessions according to the three game contexts (HIGH vs. HIGH; HIGH vs. LOW; LOW vs. LOW games) were analyzed using Binomial Logistic Regressions. The results showed no interaction with the game period. In HIGH vs. HIGH games, quality of opposition showed an association with ball possession effectiveness with ending zone, offensive system, possession duration, height of shooting and defensive pressures previous to the shot. In HIGH vs. LOW games the important factors were the starting zone, possession duration, defensive pressure previous to the last pass and to the shot, technique of shooting and the number players involved in each ball possession. Finally, in LOW vs. LOW games, the results emphasized the importance of starting and ending zones, the number of passes used and the technique of shooting. In conclusion, elite floorball performance is mainly affected by quality of opposition showing different game patterns in each context that should be considered by coaches when preparing practices and competitions

Clio: An Autonomous Vertical Sampling Vehicle for Global Ocean Biogeochemical Mapping

We report the design, sea trials, and scientific operation of a fast vertical profiling autonomous underwater vehicle, called Clio, designed to cost-effectively improve the understanding of marine microorganism ecosystem dynamics on a global scale by collecting high-volume filter samples autonomously, in contrast to conventional techniques that require a ship’s wire

Autonomous water sampler for oil spill response

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Gomez-Ibanez, D., Kukulya, A. L., Belani, A., Conmy, R. N., Sundaravadivelu, D., & DiPinto, L. Autonomous water sampler for oil spill response. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 10(4), (2022): 526, https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse10040526.A newly developed water sampling system enables autonomous detection and sampling of underwater oil plumes. The Midwater Oil Sampler collects multiple 1-L samples of seawater when preset criteria are met. The sampler has a hydrocarbon-free sample path and can be configured with several modules of six glass sample bottles. In August 2019, the sampler was deployed on an autonomous underwater vehicle and captured targeted water samples in natural oil seeps offshore Santa Barbara, CA, USA.This work was supported by the United States Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement under contract number E18PG00001