Delivery of Transport Infrastructure Assets: Decision-Making Model to Ensure Value for Money

Zhao, Jianfeng, Liu, Henry J., Sing, Michael C.P., Jin, Xiaohua and Ginige, Kanchana (2021) Delivery of Transport Infrastructure Assets: Decision-Making Model to Ensure Value for Money. Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 27 (1). 05020008. ISSN 1076-0342

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Abstract

Transport infrastructure is pivotal for economic and social development. Over the past decade, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been widely adopted for its delivery in developing and developed economies due to increasingly limited public budgets. Therefore, deciding whether to use PPPs is a critical topic for governments and relies on an essential criterion that is referred to as value for money (VfM). However, the complexity of transport infrastructure projects renders the current VfM-oriented decision-making tool (i.e., public sector comparator) to be a less-than-comprehensive assessment. Thus, a total of five case studies of transport PPPs in Australia are undertaken in this paper to interpret existing practice. The empirical evidences indicate that the VfM-based assessment being widely used is ineffective in capturing: (1) key stakeholders’ (e.g., client and asset end-users) expectations, and (2) the underlying dynamics of complexities of transport projects. Accordingly, a novel decision-making model that emphasizes asset service quality and usage is mathematically developed. Relevant implications for improving current practice have also been discussed. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge in terms of ex-ante evaluation of infrastructure projects and can be useful for enhancing the effectiveness of government’s decision-making about the employment of PPPs for transport assets.

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