Treatment of Risk, Uncertainty & Complexity
In Europe, many if not most MUTP projects are seen as critical catalysts in the process of strategic change, nation-building and urban and regional development. They have therefore been incorporated into a Trans-European Network of transportation networks (TEN-T) intended to provide greater integration of Member States and significantly to contribute to regional development. In the case of the USA, MUTPs have similarly been viewed as critical to national, regional and urban economic development, reflecting in some cases the long standing development aims of the Federal Highway System. In Japan and Hong Kong, where private finance initiatives have been most innovative, many mega transport projects have, likewise, been viewed as the backbone of long term economic and territorial restructuring efforts. Historically, their notable success in terms of delivery is now being tempered by mounting concerns over their rising costs, uncertain returns and impacts. MUTPs are typically the subject of numerous project management studies of risk analysis that focus on engineering, economic and financial aspects of project development.
These studies, however, fail adequately to take into account the systemic ramifications of complex interactions of uncertainties one upon another, and on the regions, environments and societies they are intended to serve. The scale of these individual uncertainties and their complex interactions is largely attributable to the dynamic institutional environments within which MUTPs typically initiated, planned and executed. An analysis of these risks is needed in order to understand how they are governed and influenced by particular institutional environments, a factor that is especially important for projects reliant upon private financing. For urban and regional planners, whose concerns extend far beyond the operational efficiency of MUTPs, traditional narrow appraisal and evaluation procedures, especially in environments of high uncertainty, fail to offer adequate insight into the complex economic, spatial and territorial futures that might result. Consequently, until such time as planners are able successfully to incorporate a more comprehensive and systematic method of risk analysis into planning, appraisal and evaluation procedures, they are destined not to lead, but to be assigned a subordinate role in mega transport project delivery.
In response to the above challenge the OMEGA Centre has conducted a study into risk, uncertainty and complexity for decision makers. This work has been divided into four parts.
Part One: explores and establishes the overall context of the project. It includes the clarification of concepts and elaboration of key theoretical terms and parameters of the research based on a literature review, the preparation the brief for outside contributors of papers both from selected sectors/disciplines and from transport and urban/regional planning fields as well as a desk based review of the treatment of complexity, uncertainty and risk in mega urban transport project planning today, based on published secondary sources.
Part Two: comprises a literature review of the use of robust notions of uncertainty for decision-making and planning where complexity and risk-taking are seen as the ?norm? rather than the exception. This is to be done for fields such as agriculture, medicine, project management, disaster studies, earthquake engineering, insurance, defence and security, and finance. It includes commissioned papers (as chapters of a Working Paper) by selected leading researchers and practitioners in these fields. The brief for each included the differentiation between generic and context/topic-specific lessons within their own specialist field. These papers have been included as chapters of a working paper (Working Paper #2) with a concluding chapter summarising generic and context/discipline-specific lessons that will be prepared by the UCL research team. These papers will be available for download from this site shortly.
Part Three: comprises a literature review of the contemporary use, and misuse, of concepts of complexity, uncertainty and risk-taking in urban transport infrastructure investment and planning, and city and regional policy-making and planning. As in the case of the preceding research phase, this part also entailed putting together a set of papers commissioned from selected leading researchers and practioners - this time in the fields of urban transport and city and regional policy-making and planning. Each of the contributions features as chapters in a third working paper (Working Paper #3) with overall findings summarised in a final chapter prepared by the UCL research team.
Part Four: the fourth and final part of the study has been undertaken by the UCL research team. It is a synthesis of the findings identified in the preceding three stages of the project. It includes a comparison of the various sets of findings, and a synthesis to produce a series of lessons applicable to planning, and the foundations of a generic planning framework and a set of related criteria with which to better plan, appraise and evaluate the impacts of future mega urban.
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