Rail
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.
Database on Investment in Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean
Presentation, slides, speech,
13 March 2017
Road Construction Cost Data: An Initiative to Break a Research and Policy Deadlock
Presentation, slides, speech,
13 March 2017
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.
Cruise Shipping and Urban Development: The Case of Dublin
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
22 January 2017
- Implement the Alexandra Basin Redevelopment Project.
- Develop a joint cruise strategy for the whole city.
- Better exploit Dublin’s asset as potential home port.
- Resolve constraints related to cruise passenger flows.
- Develop a green cruise port policy.
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.
The Impact of Mega-Ships: The Case of Gothenburg
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
11 January 2017
- Develop a focused national ports policy for Sweden.
- Make it easier for the Port of Gothenburg to attract direct calls by container ships.
- Resolve bottlenecks related to mega-ships.
Cruise Shipping and Urban Development: The Case of Venice
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
21 December 2016
- Create certainty about the future of cruise shipping in Venice.
- Develop a tourism strategy for the city including guidance on which tourists to prioritise.
- Develop instruments to contain the number of tourists in the city of Venice.
- Develop an action plan for extracting more value from home port passengers.
- Give a more structural character to environmental policies that have a discontinuous nature.
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.
Airport Demand Forecasting for Long-Term Planning
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
6 July 2016
- Use quantitative methods to analyse the key drivers of airport demand.
- Use expert guidance to help interpret the quantitative results.
- Quality-assure the analysis and counter the risks of optimism bias.
- Reflect the risks and uncertainties that arise in even the best forecasts.
- Make better use of demand forecasts in airport infrastructure planning.
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.
Establishing Mexico’s Regulatory Agency for Rail Transport
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
29 February 2016
- Any reform of the rail concessioning system must preserve the current high level of performance.
- Accept price discrimination to ensure efficiency, with the regulatory agency to adjudicate what prices are reasonable.
- Focus regulation on cases where effective competition does not already exist.
- Collect adequate financial and operating data on the rail companies as the basis for effective regulatory decisions.
- Consider cutting the cost of regulation by including an arbitration mechanism in any further regulatory reform.
- Consider inter-switching rules in any further regulatory reform.
- Interchange traffic rights should not be expected to be used for shippers to specify routes.
- Resource the new regulator with sufficient expertise to convince the courts that its decisions are sound.
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.
Road Infrastructure Safety Management
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
6 October 2015
- Benchmark road infrastructure against good practices in other countries.
- Implement new minimum safety standards for road infrastructure.
- Continue evaluation and research to quantify safety impacts of planning decisions.
- Implement suitable Road Infrastructure Safety Management procedures for each stage of road development including planning design, pre-opening and full operation.
- Make Road Infrastructure Safety Management procedures legally binding.
- Involve both road and health authorities when developing road accident data bases.
- Assure adequate institutional management capacity and investment levels.
- Use existing tools and guidelines; adopt second-best solutions where state-of-the-art solutions are not feasible.
- Identify the Road Safety Infrastructure Management procedures that fit specific needs and understand barriers to implementation.
- Share good practices of Road infrastructure Safety Management procedures and intervention measures.
- Monitor the safety performance of road infrastructure.
- Develop self-explaining roads.
Integrated Transport Development Experiences of Global City Clusters - Urban and Suburban Transport in Mexico City
Presentation, slides, speech,
2 July 2015
Urban Development, Transport Investments and Connectivity in the Ile-de-France Region
Presentation, slides, speech,
2 July 2015
Integrated Transport Development in China’s Emerging Urban Agglomerations
Presentation, slides, speech,
1 July 2015
Urban Planning and Transport Infrastructure Provision in the Randstad, Netherlands – a Global City Cluster
Presentation, slides, speech,
1 July 2015
Cities as Labor Markets: Relevance to China City Cluster Development
Presentation, slides, speech,
1 July 2015
The Impact of Mega-Ships
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
30 April 2015
- Cost savings from bigger container ships are decreasing.
- The transport costs due to larger ships could be substantial.
- Supply chain risks related to mega-container ships are rising.
- Public policies need to better take account of this and act accordingly.
- Further increase of maximum container ship size would raise ransport costs.
Efficiency in Railway Operations and Infrastructure Management
Presentation, slides, speech,
18 November 2014