Mega Infrastructure Projects and Public-Private-Partnerships: What policy-led multi-criteria analysis can offer in project appraisal?

By omega centre on May 23

Mega Infrastructure Projects and Public-Private-Partnerships: What policy-led multi-criteria analysis can offer in project appraisal?

May 23, 2018 17:00 - 19:00

Mega Infrastructure Projects and Public-Private-Partnerships: What policy-led multi-criteria analysis can offer in project appraisal?

Keith Perry* & John Ward** – Mega Infrastructure Projects and Public-Private-Partnerships: What policy-led multi-criteria analysis can offer in project appraisal?

Mega transport infrastructure projects have in recent decades rapidly grown in number, size, complexity and cost. These projects are frequently perceived as critical to the ‘success’ of major urban, metropolitan, regional and/or national development because of their potential to affect significant socio-economic and territorial change.

Notwithstanding that mega infrastructure investments currently overshadow much of the development agendas worldwide, those projects are often deemed ‘unsuccessful’ because they have been unable to meet their original expectations, in terms of delivery to time/cost/specification.

A major cause for such perceived underperformance has been attributed to the inadequacies of ex-ante project appraisal methodologies and the excessive importance given during project appraisal to overtly economic tools such as Cost Benefit Analysis as well as the exclusion of many project stakeholders from the planning and appraisal process.

Many authors have emphasised the need to ensure more holistic and transparent assessment of project proposals by employing Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) methodologies more extensively and increasing the stakeholder participatory character of the appraisal exercise.

The growing calls for broader and more transparent project appraisal frameworks coincide with a period when Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are mounting in importance globally as the favoured procurement route for governments looking to undertake new mega transport infrastructure developments. Some see however the practicalities of PPPs as placing them at odds with the trend in aspirations for more inclusive and open project appraisal with adequate consideration of the public interest

The authors explore whether, through broader decision-making frameworks which emphasise sustainability concerns, PPPs can remain compatible with such ambitions. Towards this end, this paper presents a rudimentary Policy Led Multi-Criteria Analysis (PLMCA) approach to project appraisal developed by the OMEGA Centre at University College London (UCL), as a means by which PLMCA can contribute to more holistic PPP procurement practice.

* Keith Perry has over 30 years’ experience in the property, infrastructure and financial sectors working at Regional Board level for several major companies both in the UK and overseas (USA) and has a background in both architecture (degree from Cambridge) and finance (Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse). Keith, as well as his role with Omega Consultants, is a director and founder of Metope Advisers Limited which gives strategic business advice to a number of clients in the public and private sector. Keith is also a partner in Arcadis where in addition to certain key client & sector focus he is Head of Capability for Investment and Finance. Keith has written several articles and contributed towards many industry and academic papers with a particular focus on new community financing solutions, major project risk management and social capital. Keith is a director of the Sheppard Trust an Extra Care charity based in London.

** Dr. John Ward is a Lecturer in Infrastructure Planning, and Director of MSc Infrastructure Planning, Appraisal and Development at the Bartlett School of Planning and Senior Research Fellow at the OMEGA Centre. John’s principal areas of research and teaching lie in the fields of infrastructure planning and appraisal using both quantitative and qualitative tools and techniques (including Cost Benefit Analysis, Infrastructure Business Cases, Impact Analysis and Multi-Criteria Analysis), as well as in the analysis and mitigation of infrastructure project risk, uncertainty and complexity in strategic decision-making. John holds a BEng and MSc in European Civil Engineering from the University of Warwick (1999), an MSc and DIC in Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics from Imperial College of Science and Medicine (2001) and a PhD in Computer Modelling of Pedestrian Movement from UCL (2007). Prior to joining the Bartlett School of Planning, John was a researcher at the Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) where he developed both macro and micro scale validated models of pedestrian movement in central London using spatial datasets, statistical techniques, object orientated programming languages and agent based modelling paradigms. John has also worked for local governments and for a private consultancy in the fields of transportation and spatial analysis. This work has included: assisting the Maltese Government with the identification of investment priorities for heritage assets; building multiple criteria analysis frameworks for the evaluation of project proposals submitted to the REGU division of the European Investment Bank; working with the Systems Centre, University of Bristol and UCL CPM to develop tools for the identification, mapping and exploitation of infrastructure interdependency to inform Infrastructure UK (HMT Treasury); the development of the London Pedestrian Model for TfL; base-lining the social and environmental impacts of the Canning Town regeneration project for London Borough of Newham; mapping crime risk through linking spatial crime data to pedestrian flows in central London for The Central London Partnership; undertaking a safety study of the Notting Hill Carnival for Westminster City Council; and conducting design guidance for 8 A&E departments for the NHS Trust “Reforming Emergency Care” programme.

Register to attend on Eventbrite

Wed 23 May 2018

17:30 – 19:00 BST

Central House (UCL) – Room LG01

14 Upper Woburn Pl

omega centre

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