Overcoming the barriers to implementing urban road user charging schemes

Urban road user charging offers the potential to achieve significant improvements in urban transport, but is notoriously difficult to implement. Cities need guidance on the range of factors to be considered in planning and implementing such schemes. This paper summarises the results of a 3 year programme which has collated evidence on the issues of most concern to cities. A state of the art report has provided evidence on 14 themes, ranging from objectives and design to implementation and evaluation. A set of 16 case studies has reviewed experience in design and implementation across Europe. The paper summarises their findings, provides references to more detailed information, presents the resulting policy recommendations to European, national and local government, and outlines the areas in which further research is needed

Cost performance of public infrastructure projects: the nemesis and nirvana of change-orders

YesThe cost performance of a wide range of public sector infrastructure projects completed by a contractor are analysed and discussed. Change-orders after a contract to construct an asset was signed were, on average, found to contribute to a 23.75% increase in project costs. A positive association between an increase in change orders and the contractor’s margin were identified. Taxpayers pay for this additional cost, while those charged with constructing assets are rewarded with an increase in their margins. As the public sector embraces an era of digitisation, there is a need to improve the integration of design and construction activities and engender collaboration to ensure assets can be delivered cost effectively and future-proofed. The research paper provides empirical evidence for the public sector to re-consider the processes that are used to deliver their infrastructure assets so as to reduce the propensity for cost overruns and enable future-proofing to occur

Once the shovel hits the ground : Evaluating the management of complex implementation processes of public-private partnership infrastructure projects with qualitative comparative analysis

Much attention is being paid to the planning of public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects. The subsequent implementation phase – when the contract has been signed and the project ‘starts rolling’ – has received less attention. However, sound agreements and good intentions in project planning can easily fail in project implementation. Implementing PPP infrastructure projects is complex, but what does this complexity entail? How are projects managed, and how do public and private partners cooperate in implementation? What are effective management strategies to achieve satisfactory outcomes? This is the fi rst set of questions addressed in this thesis. Importantly, the complexity of PPP infrastructure development imposes requirements on the evaluation methods that can be applied for studying these questions. Evaluation methods that ignore complexity do not create a realistic understanding of PPP implementation processes, with the consequence that evaluations tell us little about what works and what does not, in which contexts, and why. This hampers learning from evaluations. What are the requirements for a complexity-informed evaluation method? And how does qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) meet these requirements? This is the second set of questions addressed in this thesis

How efficient are ferries in providing public transport services? the case of Norway

The Norwegian trunk road system is supplemented by ferries due to long coastline with numerous islands and fjords. Ferries in the network operate very much like public transport; they provide scheduled transportation services. The services provided include transporting passengers, passenger vehicles and heavy vehicles across fjords, and there are costs associated with the provision of those services e.g. fuel and crew costs. Further, like all other forms of public transport, most of the ferries are run by private companies, but at a loss. The deficits are subsidised by the government and have risen rapidly in the recent years. Thus, the Norwegian government is constantly looking for ways to improve the efficiency of ferries as units of production. One of the options currently being explored by the government to improve the efficiency of ferry services is a change of the subsidy regime from cost norms to tendering. The expectations are that the change probably will lead to improved performances. However, to implement any new subsidy regime, an initial assessment of performance is needed. Such an assessment will aid in determining the potential for efficiency improvement in the sector that could be gained as well as factors that determine those potentials. In this paper we provide a yardstick for measuring the performance of ferries involved in the Norwegian trunk road system. We establish a best practice frontier from which individual ferries are measured against. The potentials for efficiency improvements can then be derived giving the decision makers knowledge of the magnitude of efficiency gains that can be achieved if the current subsidy regime is changed. The approach we use for establishing the frontier is the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) which is known to tackle problems of this type appropriately and which is now popular in assessing the efficiency of public transport services as is evident in the numerous transportation journals. Further, we use a rich data set comprising about 80 ferries operating throughout the country. The data are from the account years 2001 – 2005 and include as inputs fuel, labour, capital and maintenance costs, and as output ferry kilometres per year. Our tentative results indicate that there is a large potential for efficiency improvements in the sector as whole and that a change of the subsidy regime from cost norms probably could be a worthwhile endeavor. Further, we find that area of operation e.g. whether open sea or not has a significant impact on efficiency thus we warn the decision makers not to be indifferent concerning the area where services are provided when assessing the performances

Towards an integrated approach to transport planning in Norway - the SAC report on the consistency of benefit-cost analysis between sectors

Public funds are scarce and many public projects, like roads, schools or hospitals, often compete against one another. An evaluation method commonly used for ranking of projects, particularly for determining the individual merits of public projects is the benefit-cost analysis (BCA). As in many western European countries, Norway has a long tradition in the use of BCA with regard to evaluation of road projects. However, in the last decade there has been a tremendous development in the application of BCA in other parts of the public sector such as rail and civil aviation infrastructure, schools and hospitals. Although this development has been viewed positively by the authorities, it has not solved the problems often faced by authorities concerned with giving priority to projects between sectors. One major problem has been the lack of consistency in the way BCA has been carried out between sectors. Thus, BCA has not been used for allocating funds between sectors. Another problem has been that, even within each sector, no built-in mechanisms have existed to ensure the implementation of BCA on the basis of a sound economic framework. In June 1995, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, in art attempt to set standards for carrying out BCA, set up a Standing Advisory Committee (SAC) on benefit--cost analysis for the entire Norwegian public sector. The commission\u27s mandate has been to advise on how BCA should be carried out in the public sector to ensure that consistency is maintained between sectors. SAC also functions as advisor to the Ministry of Finance and the Government on other matters concerning costs and benefits and is often authorised to carry out assessments of large political reforms and projects of national importance. In September 1998 SAC produced an illustrative manual for conducting benefit --cost analysis for all sectors of the economy. Both the guidelines and the manual introduce substantial changes in the way impact assessment have traditionally been carried out, especially with respect to risk assessment The SAC reports have essentially been accepted by the R&D sector, although there are a few important issues which are still being disputed. In the course of 1999, the SAC report will be handled by the Norwegian Parliament. Most probably, the main guidelines will be sanctioned. This paper presents the main SAC results and recommendations, focusing on the impact on current BCA practice within the transport sector. Specifically, it presents the SACs findings on the follo,M_ng issues relevant to transport sector: * Impacts to be included and values to be used * Methods that should be used in deriving values * Methods to be used for measuring the socio-economic merits of projects * The relevant decision criteria * How to assess risk and uncertainty * Cost of public funds Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the SACs report on the road sector

Light rail transit cost performance: Opportunities for future-proofing

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd The cost performance of Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems have been scrutinized by the popular press and public sector infrastructure agencies as they have been prone to incurring cost increases in their capital expenditures (CAPEX). In tackling such increases, emphasis is placed on mitigating strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias, which has hindered the public sectors ability to embrace innovation, particularly with regard to the justification and adoption of LRT. More often than not, operational expenditure (OPEX) is neglected, and is not considered a part of the transportation cost performance literature. The aim of this paper is to examine the equivocality that surrounds the determination of cost performance of LRT projects. It is suggested that the public sector should move beyond focusing on strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias, as many governments worldwide now have in place mechanisms to address such issues, and instead focus on future-proofing their assets. It is suggested that the key enablers of future-proofing LRT are (1) private finance; (2) delivery strategy (e.g. design-build-finance-operate); (3) digitization (e.g. building information modelling); and (4) asset management (e.g. smart technologies). If the public sector is to provide an LRT system that is cost effective and able to respond to the demands imposed by climate change, then it needs to be considered from a life-cycle perspective and funding sought from the private sector to ensure its viability