Performance-based specification for the operational and structural road maintenance of communal road networks
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Due to the globalization a development towards privatization of infrastructure can be observed nationally and internationally. Worldwide, various investigations show that privately managed public infrastructures show higher cost-efficiency and enable more flexible utilization as well as change of usage. In times of sinking public income, local authorities must prove their efficiency in carrying out public duties. Public Private Partnership (PPP) can be seen as a possible initiative towards increasing efficiency. Delivering the maintenance of communal road networks in Switzerland through a PPP should not decrease the quality of the infrastructure and its use. Performance-based specification for maintaining the road network give the possibility to affect the quality, because they depend on the output instead of the traditional “input” based specification in road maintenance. In other words, performance-based specifications are not based on quantities of works measured by units for works inputs, but on measured “outputs” reflecting the “service quality levels” of the roads under contract. This paper outlines the development of performance-based specification as one of the findings of a complex research project in the field of Public Private Partnership (PPP) for operational and structural road maintenance of communal road networks.Keywords:
Public–private partnership
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U.S. transportation authorities are expanding toll roads and use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to finance transportation. What are the implications for traffic growth, sprawl, and pollution? What do recent deals portend for public involvement, governance, and information access about transportation system performance? What is the likelihood that these deals will address the public priorities and needs, with transparency and oversight of performance and use of funds? Will those putting PPP contracts together be focused on how different contract structures might affect the behavior of public and private sector actors and the performance of the transportation system? This paper explores these issues by examining several recent and proposed toll road PPP concession agreements, laws, and debates. The paper suggests that depending on the terms of the agreements and how funds are used, these investments could lead to a significant growth in traffic, sprawl, air and water pollution, and inequality of access to jobs and public facilities. This is particularly a risk if these projects proceed with little consideration of alternatives and only cursory review of indirect, secondary, and cumulative impacts on the environment and public health. However, if PPP projects were to adapt and extend what may be emerging best practices in PPP contracting and project development, these deals might be transformed into a new model – the High Performance Corridor. Recent experience with community benefit agreements and standard setting for other transportation projects in California offer useful lessons. The paper suggests ways to broaden support for PPP road investments with contractual obligations to respect communities and the environment through enforceable performance agreements, use of concession fees and toll revenues for investments in better transit and the mitigation and remediation of adverse transportation impacts, and reducing the share of tolls used to build bigger or new roads. Such an approach could help implement the 2005 U.S. transportation law, which for the first time requires state and regional transportation plans to achieve the objectives of the federally mandated planning process - to improve mobility and safety while minimizing fuel use and air pollution emissions. The paper discusses and extends an alternative concession agreement approach, drawing on recent work by Federal Highway Administration official Pat DeCorla-Souza. That work suggests an “Operate-DesignBuild-Operate model” that focuses first on operating the existing highway corridor with such strategies as improved transit and vanpool services, rush hour shoulder lanes, ramp-metering, and peak-period congestion charges. Investment in new capacity follows only after first implementing cost-effective operational improvements. Peak period tolls set to manage congestion might not be retained by the concessionaire, but managed publicly. Concessionaire income might be based on “shadow tolls” based on the number of people and amount of goods moved in the corridor without congestion and meeting environmental requirements.
Urban sprawl
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The need for defining a basic service level of a transport system is necessitated by the structural changes at the regional level and in the society in general (e.g. focused migration to a few cities, changes in industry and commerce). These trends result in a weakening of the service level of transport infrastructure, in particular in areas with a decreasing population. Since in regions with a decreasing population transport infrastructure cannot be maintained on the basis of demand criteria, the need for a definition of a basic service level has arisen. The basic level should indicate what service level is at least to be attained regardless of traffic demand levels. Definition of basic service level is closely connected to regional equity, and to the relation between infrastructure qualities and regional development. At the most generic level the basic service level of infrastructure means a level of accessibility, which enables the achievement of a certain welfare level, while avoiding both unreasonable cost burdens for the infrastructure owners and unreasonable amounts of external costs. Eventually the specification of the basic service level is a political choice. As preparation for this choice it needs - among others - to be clarified what kind of needs are involved in the specification of basic service level and what is the users' and tax payers' willingness to pay for a certain service level, while taking account of interaction effects with other public service levels. Evaluations should also take account of the quality of transport system, including substituting and complementing functions of sub-systems, as well as the interaction with adjacent sectors and aspects, such as cost and quality of living and availability of local services. Therefore the basic service level can differ across regions and sub-systems. In addition the basic service level may be influenced by restricting traffic volumes. In the present transport system the most serious deficiencies are located in the lower road network and in private roads in rural regions with decreasing population. The financing of the maintenance of these roads has decreased substantially and hence the maintenance has become patchy while local capabilities for maintenance work vanish. To solve these problems a new financing approach and organisation of maintenance is called for. For the rail network the aged superstructure and lack of capacity are key problems. This report is available at http://www.mintc.fi
Equity
Service level
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A vision has been developed on how road safety policy could look like in the near future. This vision is meant as a stimulus for the discussion on revitalising road safety policy and not as a blueprint for the future. The vision is based on an analysis of the present road safety policy, and on considering future developments in the Netherlands. This analysis shows that the present-day road safety policy has plenty of effective measures, but it lacks the right framework to implement these measures in an adequate way. For this reason, the goals set for 2010 will not be met, unless a framework is developed in which road safety becomes a 'profitable asset'. In accordance with expected developments regarding traffic and transport, government and economy, such a framework can be constructed. The idea that comes to mind is the situation in which all duties of the road maintainer, the police, the traffic legislator and the traffic controller are given to one public-private organisation that can be held liable for traffic and transport quality, in particular for road safety. Such an organisation should have access to the necessary means in order to guarantee this quality. It is recommended to invest in discussion about and research into possibilities to privatise road traffic in such a way that safe, non-congested and environmentally friendly traffic can be guaranteed. (A) For the covering abstract see IRRD E201256.
Blueprint
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Transportation plays a crucial role in our daily urban functioning. The positive side of transportation is undeniable and largely contributes to raise the quality of urban life. Transportation as one of the main infrastructures, brings broad multiplier impacts to the economy by acting both on supply and demand. However, despite the wide range of benefits, transportation contributes to a variety of adverse impacts including degradation of the environment. Such negativity of transportation addresses four major categories of impacts covering both local and global pollution, land, water, air space and material use and other quality of life effects. The key is to optimize the positive impacts and mitigate the negative impacts in order to gain an optimum benefit of transportation. To do so, transportation must be managed and organized in accordance with sustainability principals. Sustainable transport includes three interrelated systems; economic efficiency (profit), distributional/social equity (people) and environmental stability (planet). An emerging trend in sustainable transport policy, among others, is the introduction of a road pricing mechanism. Road pricing is the term used to refer to a system where the road users pay for entering an area or a roadway. The term road tolls and road (user) charges refers to a charge for entering a certain area or passing a certain point on a road. Toll road development has been implemented in Indonesia since 1978 and currently there are about 659 Km. of toll roads in operation. The main objectives of the development of toll roads are to alleviate traffic congestion in urban areas and to support regional growth. Private participation in toll road financing is encouraged due to the government's limited budget for infrastructure provision. That is why most of the toll road development is situated in urbanized areas such as Jakarta. There is a high traffic volume which is financially feasible from the private sector perspective. The study was aimed at exploring two aspects of development (toll roads and the environment). The objective of this study is to study the performance of toll roads, as a road pricing mechanism, towards an environmentally sustainable transport. To achieve such objectives, the research question was formulated as follows; is the environmental management organized and implemented in the toll road sector and how does it contribute to sustainable urban transport? The study is a qualitative research combined with descriptive and explanatory methods. Instruments of the study include a compilation of primary data with in depth interviews with the key respondents directly involved in the development of toll roads and environmental management (purposive sampling), a literature review and a desk study (secondary data includes policy documents, reports and archival data). The study has found that there is lack of emphasis on the environment aspect in toll road development. There is no explicit environmental requirement in toll road network planning or in tender evaluation to choose the private operator. Environmental concern is very much centered on AMDAL (Environmental Impact Assessment) and its implementation while there are still remaining problems attributed to AMDAL implementation. The main problems with AMDAL implementation is poor enforcement. At least three aspects are marked upon the control mechanism. The first issue is the limitation of manpower and financing in both the governmental institutions as well as in the private sector. There is not enough staff in the Ministry to deal with the work load of the projects, and there is only a limited number of staff who have sufficient knowledge and experience with environmental management. Secondly, the reason for lack of enforcement is poor coordination between stakeholders / agencies. This is due to the still evolving and restructuring institutional frameworks in most of the government organizations. Thirdly, is public lack of accessibility to the environmental documents and supervision reports. This reduces the opportunity for the public to actively be involved in the supervision which could compensate for the lack of this action from the government. The main recommendations of this study, based on the findings, are to put more environmental concern in toll road development and to improve enforcement mechanism for environmental management. The first may be achieved by stating environmental requirements at every stage in the development, such as the requirement for private company's environmental certification. The latter can be achieved by reinforcing the environmental institution with improved quality of human resources, making more finances available for environmental supervision or by introducing reward and punishment mechanisms. Regarding environmental impacts of toll roads to urban environmental qualities, this study shows that there is a potential positive contribution of toll roads to the environment by smoother traffic (less congestion) and reduced emissions. However, this positive contribution can only be quantitatively measured due to the complexity of the transport system and limited data on environmental parameters. Overall, the results show that the toll road development emphasis in Jakarta is very highly based on the economic goals and less based on social goals, and even less based on the environmental goals. Keywords: sustainable development, transportation, toll road, road pricing, environmental impact assessment
Sustainable transport
Urban sprawl
Toll road
Equity
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Construction of highways involves huge investment. These infrastructural facilities should not be allowed to deteriorate as is the case with the developing countries for want of budgetary resources. Road users commit a relatively large sum in vehicle operating costs in respect of poorly maintained roads. This wasteful expenditure could be better channelled by levying a moderate highway maintenance toll to generate sufficient revenue to keep the main road networks well maintained. This will induce private entrepreneurs to take up the maintenance responsibilities efficiently and will free the limited budgetary resources to take care of constructional liabilities. The paper advocates this concept by considering some relevant aspects like economic principles, road users costs, tolling potential, possibilities and problems etc. Hypocrisies associated with the free roads concept are further exposed. The illustrations, wherever necessary, are from India which has critical maintenance problems in respect of its large network of roads. The paper finally recommends setting up of a separate self-financed maintenance organisation dealing exclusively with maintenance of roads and bridges. (A)
Commit
Investment
Toll road
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Many factors make the management of city road networks more complex than the management of rural networks. As matter of fact in the former we have: many type of users, limited alternative routes to avoid temporary obstruction or road closure due to work zone, congestion issues, presence of guideway urban transit systems (e.g. tram and trolleybus), high sensibility towards the environmental issues (noise, vibration, air pollution etc.), town planning requirements, issues related to protection of monuments, etc.
In Italy many city administration in order to optimize the road asset management and to improve performance and reduce costs, have ordered the management activity to external service provider by signing global service or concession agreement (see prEN15221-1 06). In these organisation we have three actors: the administration (owner), the manager (service provider internal or external to administration) and the end users. It is responsibility of the administrations to specify the requirements of the management service, which should be aligned to the economic, organisational and strategic objectives defined in the transport policy of the Administration. The most common objectives in urban areas are: accessibility for all users (i.e. vehicles, pedestrian cycle, etc.), safety, environment, transport quality and mobility, asset development and improvement.
Once demand requirements of Admistration are clearly expressed the management service can be formalized and ordered through a service level agreement (SLAs). Level of Service is defined through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which are used by Administration to ensure that the system move towards the pre-defined goals, and by manager to select maintenance projects, evaluating the impact of each project on level of service. Therefore Performance Indicator are essential element in road asset management activities, delivered by both internal or external provider, as matter of fact in the last decade most international organization and public agency made substantial effort in order to develop criteria for measuring performance. The most significant findings of previous studies suggest, among other things, that that the indicators should be related to stakeholder, structured in quality levels (IQL) and that a relationship should exist between the various stakeholder and the IQL.
In the following a framework of indicators to be used in urban areas are illustrated, particularly fixing the attention on the description of the environmental performance indicators.
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Combining with attribute of road traffic service, the paper refered to research advance related to define the meaning and standard of equality of road traffic service. Further the paper analyzed the reason of unequality of road traffic service that the government allocation of inadequate capital projects, toll roads scale is too large, the unbalanced nature of investment in highway construction and lack of capital investment in rural road construction, based on the above, the paper discussed public road service supply considering equality value from aspects of transformation of government functions, establishing the division of labor between central and local public services and accountability mechanisms and improving inter-governmental transfer payment system, and etc.
Investment
Capital (architecture)
Transfer payment
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ACT self-government has created a new policy, organisational and operational environment, giving opportunities for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of providing and operating the ACT road system. The new 17-member locally elected Legislative Assembly is supported by a single ACT Government Service. The Territory Government has to redress funding differentials as identified by the Commonwealth Grants Commission, whilst simultaneously facing pressures to provide services and for community consultation. Offsetting difficulties of the short time-frame in which adjustments to the new arrangements must be made are the ACT's advantages of a single jurisdiction for all State and Local Government functions, small geographic size, the existing reasonably new and high quality road network, and a population which accepts and expects change. Accordingly, new policies, strategies and tasks exist in four key areas of ACT roads provision. First, transport and land use planning must be integrated in terms of both State and Local Government functions, and at the same time must incorporate roads as an essential and cohesive part of the total transport system. Secondly, better justification will be required for funding of transport infrastructure and operational requirements, and demonstrating such funds are used efficiently. Thirdly, standards for design, construction, operations and maintenance must demonstrate optimum economic, social and political benefits. Finally, the change to managing transport demand (rather than a supply orientation) must accept community and client consultation as an integral part of the political and bureaucratic process (A).
Redress
Bureaucracy
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This report considers the issues and possibilities of a data framework, incorporating road use data and network performance data, that could apply for all road authorities and provides guidance on a way forward, taking into account the current initiatives in the public and private sectors. There are initiatives at both the national government level as well as in the private sector to develop data consolidation arrangements. However there are issues of governance, ownership and financing that have to be resolved. The study finds that there is no immediate need to develop a new data framework for road use and network performance as it is likely that the existing road information systems are more than adequate for the requirements of each road authority. Rather it suggests that road authorities should adopt a uniform approach in responding to requests for access to data. New network performance data should be integrated within the existing road use information systems that exist in each road authority. There is therefore a clear need to link up the road use data with the network performance data activities within each road authority. (a)
Consolidation
Data governance
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Roads deeply affect the life of people and keep doing an important role to support economic growth of a country. According to the budget plan of the ministry of construction and transportation of Korea, 8.1 trillion won have been allotted for road investment in the year of 2002 which occupy 61% of the transportation infrastructure special account (13.3 trillion won) and 4.7% of the total national budget (1,740 trillion won). It is true that services generated from road investment such as mobility enhancement and increased accessibility have shown positive effects through shortened travel time and decreased vehicle operating cost. However, it is also notable that many negative effects are gradually being discussed and those are nowadays getting severer due to enhanced people interests about road construction, increased concerns on environment and active public involvement that were evoked by traffic accidents, air pollution & noise and destruction of environment. Road construction processes in Korea are normally governed by administrative sectors (suppliers) not by users. These processes ate very weak to accomodate user s needs and community concerns thus easy to fail finalizing a road project without hassles. A public hearing process is supposed to be held in the processes of detailed design step and the environmental impact analysis. However, it is not enough to grab user's needs and community concerns. Increased public involvement frequencies, optimized public involvement timing and enhanced depth of public involvement magnitude are suggested to improve the current poor public involvement schemes in road planning and design processes. The application of these recommended methods to the road planning and design processes may guarantee the change from the current supplier-oriented schemes to the new user-oriented one. Also, this study suggests to reset objectivity and clarity of road construction process, to make conciliation guidelines based on many practical cases that produced good results, to introduce public involvement techniques in a stepwise basis, and to foster the professionals via education and training programs.
Investment
Christian ministry
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