Recent transport sector liberalisation, as well as global economic crisis, is favouring the implementation of transport infrastructure projects through Public–Private Partnerships (PPP). However, there is a debate as to whether PPP schemes are a better option than conventional procurement. To this end, an evaluation framework is proposed, to assess which of these two alternative schemes for transport projects financing is preferable for the public. The proposed framework is complimentary to the Value for Money (VfM) approach and is based on a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). The first step is the estimation of the Public Sector Comparator (PSC) for the case of conventional procurement, dealing with construction, maintenance and operation costs revenues, as well as any costs associated with risks undertaken by the public. As for the PPP case, it includes any payments by the public sector and related risks costs. The MCA is then applied only if the PPP is found preferable for the public sector. The latter considers additional impacts, including among others the social attributes of a particular scheme, job creation, environmental impacts and safety and security aspects. The proposed framework was applied to a pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor infrastructure project in the city of Indore, India, in order to demonstrate its validity. The framework and its application could provide useful guidance when considering PPP for a transport project, since it demonstrates in a transparent way the society's attitude towards this project, something that is critical to its acceptance.
Until the end of the previous century, the public sector, being the owner and the responsible entity for the transport infrastructure in almost all countries, was, with a few exceptions, engaged directly in the financing and administration of transport infrastructure construction, maintenance and operations. Nevertheless, the 1990s were marked with a significant development of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), and from then onwards, PPPs have gained worldwide acceptance.
The United Kingdom is the country that leads the way in this approach, naming it Private Finance Initiative (PFI), and applies it to other sectors, such as public transport. The European Commission has also been promoting the use of PPP in the implementation of the Trans-European network.
Despite the latter, there is still considerable debate, adding to the public's confusion, as to whether a PPP financing scheme will most likely perform better than any traditional standard model of exclusive public involvement and financing. A common problem with PPP projects was that private investors obtained a rate of return that was higher than the government's bond rate, even though most or all of the income risk associated with the project was borne by the public sector.
To this end, several Value for Money (VfM) evaluation approaches have been developed, which although have wide application, are believed to suffer from several drawbacks, the most important being that they focus purely on financial aspects, failing to accommodate other significant non-readily-quantifiable factors, such as social impacts that affect public acceptance.
Based on the above, a methodological framework for the evaluation of the two alternative schemes for transport projects is proposed, complimentary to the one of the conventional VfM. It is based on a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA), introducing non-quantifiable impacts.
Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) are related to the involvement of the private sector in public sector projects. With regard to transport, PPPs have gained worldwide acceptance, even more so presently, favoured by the transport sector liberalisation and recent economic crisis. Currently, these constitute a well-established practice for road projects in Europe in particular, as well as in several other countries worldwide. In addition, nowadays, a new model is being discussed, namely the PPCP – Public–Private Community Partnership Model, wherein both the Government and the private sector work together for social welfare, eliminating the primary focus of private players on profit. This model is being applied more in developing countries, such as India.
Several approaches have been developed in the related literature to determine the value for money of PPP schemes. These differ among different countries, while there is lack of engagement between the practitioners and the academics. In addition, they are based solely on financial factors, failing thus to take into consideration socio-economic and other qualitative ones, which cannot be readily monetised, but have a significant impact on the choice of financing alternatives and often receive public and political attention in the decision-making processes.
To this end, the present paper attempts to provide a novel approach for the evaluation of the two alternative schemes for transport projects delivery that is complimentary to the conventional one of Value for Money (VfM), and based on the Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). The proposed evaluation takes into account the otherwise overlooked factors of distribution of ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’ of a transport project across population groups and regions, environmental and safety impacts, public and market response, as well as the impacts of the recent global economic crisis. It provides, therefore, a transparent way to demonstrate which of the two alternatives is preferable for the public, since public acceptance is a key factor that can contribute to the implementation of such schemes. For demonstration purposes, the proposed approach was applied to a pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor, a transport project in the city of Indore in India. The results demonstrated its applicability with outputs being in agreement with the existing situation.
