I costi e i benefici socio-economici connessi all’adozione del Global Service in ambito stradale. Il caso della Strada a Grande Comunicazione FI - PI - LI

Abstract

Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) analyses benefits to the society coming from a specific management or infrastructural project, in order to evaluate its economic sustainability; more precisely, the main purpose of CBA is to appraise the real contribution to the overall social welfare of a public investment. This paper, on the basis of an accurate analysis of the main Italian and foreign experiences in this field, aims to investigate the nature of the socio-economic costs and benefits connected to a public body’s choice of adopting Performance-Based Road Management and Maintenance Contracts (i.e. Global Service contracts, as they are called in Italy). More precisely, the opportunity of outsourcing to a specialized firm all typical road sector services, that are not part of a public administration core business, but are still part of those activities usually carried out by in-house labour, leading to a virtuous circle. Its most significant results are an efficiency increase in the road network, a decrease in the administrative costs of the public body (through an optimization of the public body human resources’ use and the decrease of bargaining costs with input providers), a greater certainty on balance sheet results, leading to a minimized financial risk. On the other hand, the main economic costs are recognizable in the fixed fee paid for outsourcing road services, in the public administration workforce’s training costs, aimed at acquiring the needed skills to deal with the new management tool, and in employment costs that may arise as a consequence of misalignments between labour demand and supply in the area taken in consideration. In short, together with a close qualitative observation of benefits and costs connected to the choice of Global Service contracts, the present paper offers a quantitative assessment of these variables with reference to the motorway Firenze - Pisa - Livorno (FI-PI-LI)Performance-Based Road Management and Maintenance Contracts (Global Service), CostBenefit Analysis (CBA), Motorway Firenze - Pisa - Livorno (FI-PI-LI).