Transport Infrastructure Investment Options For Efficiency

Examines key principles that should be considered by governments in deciding how to provide and pay for surface transport infrastructure, with a view to best serving societies’ needs and employing public resources.

This report describes evaluation methods for transport infrastructure investments to ensure that scarce resources are allocated in a way that maximises their net return to society.

This paper describes the characteristics of public investment management (PIM) in seven EU countries as it applies to a single sector transport infrastructure. The report highlights some of the common challenges that four relatively new EU member states Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Latvia face as they plan and execute their transport infrastructure projects. It recognizes the importance that EU-mandated processes and procedures have in shaping national systems in the new member states (NMS), but the report finds that actual practices often fall short of EU goals due to capacity constraints, weak institutional structures, and other factors. The experiences of the NMS are compared with those of more developed economies (namely Spain, the UK, and Ireland) to assess whether the later countries have faced similar challenges in managing public investment, and if so, what measures they have adopted to overcome them. This comparative analysis serves to draw out several good practice examples that are relevant for all countries. How those practices are applied in each country is a matter for further study, as each country considers its own political culture and administrative tradition. This paper is a first step toward building dialogue among public finance practitioners in Central and Eastern Europe on how to make public investment projects more effective and efficient over the long term.

A major concern of all decision makers has been to ensure that there are clear benefits from transport investment proposals. The travel time savings are clear, but the wider economic developments have presented enormous difficulty in terms of both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence. This book reviews the history of the debate and argues that the agenda has changed. These issues are presented together with a major analytical investigation of macroeconomic models, evaluation in transport and microeconomic approaches. The final part of the book presents a series of case studies for road, rail and airport investment schemes, particularly focusing on the economic development aspects.

Road and Rail Infrastructure in Asia: Investing in Quality discusses the challenges facing the region and possible policy options, including those previously or currently used in Emerging Asian countries, with reference to the experiences of OECD member countries.

Throughout the world, the use of some kind of a formal transportation project evaluation procedure is a requirement. Yet, by and large, these are partial; in fact, much weight is often placed on the initial -pre-engineering -phases of the planning process, when vital information, such as accurate costs and demand projections, is largely missing. Moreover, many of these procedures neglect to consider key issues such as project’s risks, capital costs financing, latent demand, market imperfections, labor force availability and various incompatibilities between trip rates, travel times and activity location. As a result, projects, which are judged as viable under such deficient evaluation schemes, may have had a significantly different projection of capital costs and demand should a well-founded, thorough, and efficient evaluation process be used. Against this background, this book’s main objective is to construct a comprehensive and methodical economic, planning and decision-making framework for the evaluation of proposed transportation infrastructure investment projects. Such a framework is founded on four key principles. It is based on well-established economic, transportation and policy-analysis theoretical principles; it is comprehensive enough to encompass all relevant evaluation issues; it is applicable to a wide range of transportation investment projects; and it is amenable to empirical application including a sensitivity analysis and alternative scenarios regarding urban, regional and national developments.

Clear, comprehensive guidance toward the global infrastructure investment market Infrastructure As An Asset Class is the leading infrastructure investment guide, with comprehensive coverage and in-depth expert insight. This new second edition has been fully updated to reflect the current state of the global infrastructure market, its sector and capital requirements, and provides a valuable overview of the knowledge base required to enter the market securely. Step-by-step guidance walks you through individual infrastructure assets, emphasizing project financing structures, risk analysis, instruments to help you understand the mechanics of this complex, but potentially rewarding, market. New chapters explore energy, renewable energy, transmission and sustainability, providing a close analysis of these increasingly lucrative areas. The risk profile of an asset varies depending on stage, sector and country, but the individual structure is most important in determining the risk/return profile. This book provides clear, detailed explanations and invaluable insight from a leading practitioner to give you a solid understanding of the global infrastructure market. Get up to date on the current global infrastructure market Investigate individual infrastructure assets step-by-step Examine illustrative real-world case studies Understand the factors that determine risk/return profiles Infrastructure continues to be an area of global investment growth, both in the developed world and in emerging markets. Conditions continually change, markets shift and new considerations arise; only the most current reference can supply the right information practitioners need to be successful. Infrastructure As An Asset Class provides clear reference based on the current global infrastructure markets, with in-depth analysis and expert guidance toward effective infrastructure investment.