All Transport
Strategic Infrastructure Planning: International Best Practice
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
23 March 2017
- Systemic risks can be reduced where projects form part of a broad and long-term strategic plan.
- Strategic infrastructure planning carries its own risks, including technology's influence on demand- and supply-side considerations.
- When it works well, strategic planning can set out a stable set of priorities for future investment with durable cross-party support.
- A successful infrastructure planning process balances a stable framework with maintaining flexibility.
- The planning process requires clear objectives, a degree of independence and an open, collaborative approach.
- The planning methodology needs to address risks and uncertainties, take into account binding policy constraints and include considerations of pricing the use of infrastructure.
- A top-down approach to infrastructure planning to complement traditional project by project assessment is essential to a strategic assessment of long-term economic infrastructure needs across sectors.
- Infrastructure planning across sectors can help identify the most important systemic risks early.
- Using analytical methods such as a scenario-based approach to analysis can be helpful in future-proofing infrastructure plans.
- It is important to consider how demand for scarce infrastructure can be managed. Debt management need to be part of any strategic investment plan.
- A top-down approach could foster the development of an analytical framework for investment decisions reflecting both demand and supply side considerations.
Ex-Post Assessment of Transport Investments and Policy Interventions
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
27 February 2017
- Data collection for evaluation needs to be planned for from the outset.
- Audit transport projects throughout the project stages
- Use independent organisations to carry out audits of transport projects.
- Recognise the variety of economic goals targeted by transport investments.
- Involve local partners in providing evidence on performance.
Public Private Partnerships for Transport Infrastructure: Renegotiation and Economic Outcomes
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
23 February 2017
- Use renegotiation of PPPs only in exceptional cases.
- Use an independent jury to assess whether the outcome of a PPP is what parties might have been expected to negotiate had they foreseen a change that has occurred.
- Consider to task an independent body with determining when renegotiation of a PPP is legitimate.
- Include reputation and demonstrated competence in selection criteria for a PPP.
- Compare advantages and weaknesses of PPPs versus other forms of private capital.
ITF Transport Outlook 2017
Transport Outlook, Policy Insights,
29 January 2017
- The 2016 Paris climate agreement must be translated into concrete actions for the transport sector.
- Policy will need to embrace and respond to disruptive innovation in transport.
- Reducing CO2 from urban mobility needs more than better vehicle and fuel technology.
- Targeted land-use policies can reduce the transport infrastructure needed to provide more equitable access in cities.
- Governments need to develop planning tools to adapt to uncertainties created by changing patterns of consumption, production and distribution.
Quantifying the Socio-economic Benefits of Transport
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
20 January 2017
- Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) guidelines can be expanded to include reliability and some wider impacts.
- Further research into reliability benefits is needed to improve confidence in results.
- Wider economic impacts should be examined in cases where they are expected to be significant.
- Further research into the impacts and tools for capturing wider impacts is needed.
- Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can play an important role in decision making, but need not dominate.
Adapting Transport to Climate Change and Extreme Weather
Research Report, Policy Insights,
14 December 2016
- Act now to preserve the value of transport infrastructure and maintain network performance.
- Protect transport infrastructure against climate impacts through good maintenance.
- Prepare for more frequent and unexpected failure of transport infrastructure.
- Account for temporary unavailability of transport assets in in service continuity plans.
- Assess vulnerability of transport assets and networks from climate change and extreme weather.
- Focus on transport system resilience, not just on designing robust infrastructure.
- Re-evaluate thinking on redundant transport infrastructure.
- Do not rely solely on cost-benefit analysis for appraising the value of transport infrastructure.
- Develop new decision-support tools that incorporate deep uncertainty into asset appraisal.
Capacity to Grow: Transport Infrastructure Needs for Future Trade Growth
Corporate Partnership Board Report, Policy Insights,
8 May 2016
- Develop planning tools to adapt to uncertainties: Good port planning means planning for uncertainties.
- Increase port capacity by optimising existing terminals.
- Take a holistic planning approach to improving port capacity needs as part of the entire supply chain.
- Use funding as a balancing tool in port capacity development.
Adapting Transport Policy to Climate Change
Research Report, Policy Insights,
30 November 2015
- Uncertainty is different from risk.
- Climate effects are subject to uncertainty.
- There are techniques to deal with risk.
- There is currently no robust method to treat Knightian uncertainty.
- Risk, uncertainty and discount rate all affect carbon value.
Better Regulation of Public-Private Partnerships for Transport Infrastructure
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
24 September 2013
- A mix of financing models spreads risks.
- A dedicated budget for PPPs, set in relation to the rate at which future liabilities will be accumulated, can provide such a limit.
- Explicit consideration of alternative financing arrangements should be employed in determining whether to proceed with PPP projects.
- It is recommended that governments require PPP projects to pass tests of affordability and to clear the hurdle rates of return generally applied to publicly financed transport projects.
- The expected cost of PPP projects should take account of cost inflation resulting from the propensity for projects to be renegotiated.
- At the individual project level, risks should be assigned to the party best able to manage them, along with rights to make related decisions.
- Assigning demand risk is not straightforward and risk sharing arrangements are therefore common.
- Continuity of resources and expertise is essential for addressing strategic behaviour and optimism bias more generally.
- Regulatory agencies are well placed to ensure transparency and accountability by publishing reports on the criteria employed to make decisions and publishing contracts.