Risk Management, Governance and Financing Issues in Public-Private Partnerships Transportation Projects

This paper discusses issues related to risk management, governance, and financing of public-private partnerships transportation projects. The allocation of risks and the requirements for ownership and equity provision are examined through analysis of a range of contracts. Lesson learn from a series of Australia’s public-private partnerships transportation projects are also presented. The results show that from the perspective of risk allocation, the arrangements are consistent among the projects. Some fluctuations, however, are observed in term of equity provision. Initially, the contracts are developed based on the private sector taking full traffic demand risk and promising outcomes led to revenue sharing clauses being introduced, later overoptimistic demand forecasts resulted in the market rejecting acceptance of traffic demand risk. The paper also presents the variation between the case study projects in terms of excess revenue sharing. The analysis also suggests that, in arranging these types of projects, traffic demand issue is prominent and should be given major concern since it is closely related with the revenue of the projects which in turns affect the equity of the projects

Risk Management, Governance and Financing Issues in Public-Private Partnership Transportation Projects

This paper discusses issues related to risk management, governance, and financing of public-private partnerships transportation projects. The allocation of risks and the requirements for ownership and equity provision were examined through analysis of a range of contracts. Lessons learnt from a series of Australia’s public-private partnerships transportation projects are also presented. The results showed that from the perspective of risk allocation, the arrangements were consistent among the projects. Some fluctuations, however, were observed in terms of equity provision. Initially, the contracts were developed based on the private sector taking full traffic demand risk and promising outcomes led to revenue sharing clauses being introduced. Consequently, overoptimistic demand forecasts resulted in the market rejecting the acceptance of traffic demand risk. The paper also presents the variation between the case study projects in terms of excess revenue sharing. The analysis also suggests that, in arranging these types of projects, traffic demand issue would be prominent and should be given major concern since it would be closely related with the revenue of the projects, which in turn would affect the equity of the projects

Development of a pavement maintenance effectiveness model for management of road networks

© 2011 Dr. I Putu MandiarthaThe development of efficiency models for road network management is challenged by three aspects: reliable future performance predicting capability, effective and efficient optimization modelling, and ability to accommodate constraints faced by the roads authority. This research aims to answer these challenges by analyzing pavement maintenance effectiveness of a road network leading to the development of effective models. The effectiveness of routine, periodic and rehabilitation maintenances are investigated, resulting in the development of a new quantification method. Further, these quantification results form inputs for the development of a stochastic based performance prediction model (Markov Chains) and optimization model (Markov Decision Processes/MDP). The results and discussions of the maintenance effectiveness analysis are utilized and then directly converted into Transition Probability Matrices (TPM) as main inputs of the Markov Chains. A very important discussion and outcome of this thesis is the development of graphical/visual presentations of the Markov Chains and their interpretations. The methods for presenting the results of the Markov Chains analysis for the performance prediction of different types of pavement maintenance are put forward as an enhanced way to present such information. The analysis and presentations developed in this thesis in part address the previous limited information or discussions on the visual presentations of the Markov Chains in road network management applications. Another important idea put forward in this thesis is an implementation of additional constraints into the MDP optimization analysis. An average cost method is selected for a solution of the MDP and is solved using dual linear programming. These additional constraints (i.e. budget and proportion constraints) are discussed through development of different scenarios, leading to development of optimal maintenance policies. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the implementation of the maintenance policies obtained in the optimization process into a road network under case study. Ultimately; this thesis aims to provide tools for road authorities to select optimal maintenance measures based on a more informed network level performance prediction model, given the uncertainty of pavement behaviours

A balanced approach to project management in partnering types of contract: a public private partnerships framework

This paper investigates project management relationship employed in partnering types of contracts by investigating practices and gathering inputs from participants specifically involved in Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in Australia. A detailed survey was conducted and the results revealed behavioral differences between project management of PPPs compared with the focus of more conventional projects where an adversarial approach is common rather than using a strategic approach in managing projects. This research indicates that, for the success of partnering type of projects, strategic aspects of project management play an important role and are equally important with traditional aspects of project management. Some of those critical areas of project management to balance the approach are identified and utilized in a new proposed project management framework. The proposed framework enhances the commonly utilized framework, developed by Project management Institute (PMI), by adding the strategic project management aspects into the architectural of the approach

Pavement Maintenance Optimization Model using Markov Decision Processes

This paper presents an optimization model for selection of pavement maintenanceintervention using a theory of Markov Decision Processes (MDP). There are some particular characteristics of the MDP developed in this paper which distinguish it from other similar studies or optimization models intended for pavement maintenance policy development. These unique characteristics include a direct inclusion of constraints into the formulation of MDP, the use of an average cost method of MDP, and the policy development process based on the dual linear programming solution. The limited information or discussions that are available on these matters in terms of stochastic based optimization model in road network management motivates this study. This paper uses a data set acquired from road authorities of state of Victoria, Australia, to test the model and recommends steps in the computation of MDP based stochastic optimization model, leading to the development of optimum pavement maintenance policy

Exploration on Drivers’ Perception Towards Roadway Inventory Elements

Accidents due to driver’s fault occur in many ways including human perception and driving behaviour. It varies with age, emotion, belief and attitude. In addition, the fact that accident can happen due to poor roadway inventory management should not be neglected. Therefore, this study is intended to explore how drivers’ perception subjectively reviews the roadway inventory elements performance that might be a potential factor affecting road safety. To achieve this, Jalan Kuantan-Gambang was chosen as a study location. This study was conducted using a qualitative study by means of questionnaires distribution. Then the average index method was performed to indicate the driver’s perception towards the roadway inventory elements performance. The results explain that drivers’ perception of different age affects the performance of roadway elements, where attention for older drivers during road design and construction are essential

Risk management, governance and financing issues in Public Private Partnerships – Transport projects

This paper discusses issues related to risk management, governance, and financing of public-private partnerships transportation projects. The allocation of risks and the requirements for ownership and equity provision were examined through analysis of a range of contracts. Lessons learnt from a series of Australia’s public-private partnerships transportation projects are also presented. The results showed that from the perspective of risk allocation, the arrangements were consistent among the projects. Some fluctuations, however, were observed in terms of equity provision. Initially, the contracts were developed based on the private sector taking full traffic demand risk and promising outcomes led to revenue sharing clauses being introduced. Consequently, overoptimistic demand forecasts resulted in the market rejecting the acceptance of traffic demand risk. The paper also presents the variation between the case study projects in terms of excess revenue sharing. The analysis also suggests that, in arranging these types of projects, traffic demand issue would be prominent and should be given major concern since it would be closely related with the revenue of the projects, which in turn would affect the equity of the projects