Future challenges for transport infrastructure pricing in PPP arrangements

In this paper we report the conclusion of a research project dedicated to pricing regimes in public-private partnership contracts for the provision of transport infrastructure (Macário et al., 2009). Several elements have been brought to the bulk of knowledge that supports the design and implementation of public-private partnership in the transport sector. These developments have been achieved in the following domain:

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Understand difficulties of price setting within the PPP environment, given the potential conflict of interest among the different parties engaged, go beyond the discussion of first best versus second-best price setting mechanisms.

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Understand the role of government and regulators in the performance of a PPP.

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Translate the issue of asymmetries of information between parties into a risk taking language.

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Devise alternative contractual designs that will enable competitive price setting.

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Understand that a structural element is missing to conciliate the views of the different stakeholders over a PPP: a bridge between infrastructure costs and charges.

The objective of this paper is to overview the main challenges ahead of transport infrastructure pricing, considering the current and likely future policies as well as the field constraints. Moreover, a proposal is formulated to overcome some of the current pitfalls associated to transport infrastructure pricing.     

Study on the preciseness of hot spot stress of web-stiffened cruciform welded joints derived from shell finite element analyses

A new simple and accurate shell FE-based structural Hot Spot Stress (HSS) determination method for web-stiffened cruciform joints has been proposed. Local stress of welded joints in full-scale bulk carrier (BC)’s lower stool models subject to bending and pressure loadings are examined. HSSs determined by the proposed method are compared with those derived by Lotsberg’s method and the conventional 0.5t-1.5t extrapolation. As results, following are found:

(1)

The local stress of full-scale BC lower stool models with various stool angle and plate thickness can be calculated accurately solely from shell FE results by means of the proposed method.

(2)

HSSs of welded joints in full-scale BC lower stool models subject to bending and pressure loadings derived by the proposed method show good agreement with the target HSSs determined from fine solid models. This demonstrates the validity of the proposed method for actual ship structures under the real load.

(3)

The excessive safety allowance of HSS determined by the conventional 0.5t-1.5t extrapolation can be reduced substantially by adopting Lotsberg’s method or our proposal. The proposed HSS determination method gives more accurate estimates compared to Lotsberg’s method under the conditions chosen, and the application range of the proposed method is equal to or wider than Lotsberg’s method.

     

Programming, optimal pricing and partnership contract for infrastructures in PPPs

The development of various forms of public-private partnerships for the financing, building and operating of public infrastructure has not fundamentally altered the economic calculations involved. This chapter examines to what extent it is necessary, however, to change the way that government uses socio-economic and financial evaluations, whether to optimise investment programming or pricing. Ensuring a coherent match between these two types of optimisation can provide a principle for determining the optimal programming price.We begin by showing that when projects are financed by both users (toll revenues) and taxpayers (subsidies), it is socially beneficial to plan these investments on the basis of the net present value (NPV) provided by each unit of public money invested. This NPV/subsidy ratio must obviously be higher than the public-funding scarcity coefficient or else the investment would destroy more wealth than it would produce.One of the ways of improving this ratio is also to optimise the toll level, since increasing it can lower the subsidy but has an adverse impact on the user surplus, it is essential to set the optimal toll.In the case of an approved project considered in isolation, we show that the optimal toll depends upon the public-funding scarcity coefficient. If there is no scarcity, the optimal toll is zero. As public-funding becomes scarcer, the optimal toll draws closer to the toll that optimises revenue.In the case of a programme of several projects subject to budget constraint, we show that the optimal toll no longer depends upon the public-funding scarcity coefficient and that there are several scenarios depending on the relative values of the maximum revenue and the total cost of the project:

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when, whatever the toll, revenue can no longer cover over half of the cost, it is socially beneficial to choose not to levy any toll;

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when there is a toll that covers the total cost, the operator may be left free to set it at the level he sees fit, with the issue of how the profits are to be shared between the franchisee and the franchisor being settled separately;

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when the maximum revenue of the project falls between half and all of the total cost, the value of the toll that maximises the welfare function is lower than the revenue-maximising toll and must therefore be set for the private operator by government.

Thus, the partnership contract must be given a different content in these three cases of optimal pricing.

Preamble

Most of the theoretical studies devoted to optimising public investment programming and infrastructure pricing have, since the work of Jules Dupuit (1844), focused on the salient issues of the transport sector, even though this work was relevant to all sorts of public infrastructure. The analysis presented in this paper deals with transport economics, but in line with this tradition, is also applicable to any field in which public-funding is combined with commercial revenue. For example, the question of determining how the financing of an opera should be shared between taxpayers and opera-goers raises the same type of issues as the optimal combination of tolls and subsidies for financing a motorway project. This report will be focused on these issues. We shall see that certain precautions are called for in investment programming together with some new thinking on pricing principles.     

航运服务业集聚模式的生成机理及要素研究——推进上海国际航运中心建设的思考

为了研究航运服务业集聚的生成模式和生成要素,本文在对服务业集聚理论研究的基础上,根据市场和政府对航运服务业集聚的作用,将其生成模式划分为自然生成模式、政府主导型生成模式和混合推动型生成模式,并分别结合伦敦、新加坡和上海三个城市的航运服务业集聚模式的生成要素进行了系统研究。     

Total oil spill costs and compensations

Although counteracting environmental programmes and policies have been strengthened, large oil spills still occur at irregular intervals. The total oil spill costs and their compensations have attracted much interest from various parties, such as local stakeholders, and state and federal governments. This paper addresses five major cost categories whose aggregations are expected to cover the overall direct and indirect costs after the release of an oil spill. Among them, research costs should not be neglected, since they tend to be high if public attention has been drawn to the case. Through an examination of the relationship between the total oil spill costs and their admissible claims, we found that:

1. admissible claims do not cover the overall costs of the oil spill, and

2. admissible claims cannot be compensated in full in the case of large spills.

Clearly, a sound oil spill contingency management aims to minimize both the environmental impacts of areas most at risk and the total oil spill costs. In this paper an economic model for measuring environmental damages following an oil spill is addressed and applied to the Prestige case which happened to be the worst oil pollution in the history of Spain. The model indicates how an ideally a priori economic evaluation may intuitively help managers to make informed as well as fast decisions in contingency cases.     

The 2008 New Zealand public transport management act: Rationale, key provisions, and parallels with the United Kingdom

In January 2009, following a lengthy industry review and consultation process, the New Zealand Public Transport Management Act (PTMA) came into force. The Act allows Regional Transport Authorities, as the primary procurers of public transport services, to place either a control or a contracting requirement upon services that are registered as commercial requiring no subsidy. The imposition of either the control or the contracting requirement is designed to facilitate greater system integration, improve service continuity and enhance services to the customer, andallow the Authority to invest in key strategic projects, such as integrated fares and ticketing, so as to grow patronage.The PTMA’s other objective is to ensure improved value for public subsidies. Recent years have seen significant subsidy inflation for seemingly little commensurate benefits. The Act will allow the Regional Transport Authority to achieve greater value for money through improved farebox, a shift to longer, larger contracts to increase competition in the market, a more appropriate allocation of risk, and the removal of the ability of operators to ‘game’ the current system by using strategically placed commercial services as barriers to competition.Similar concerns have also stimulated new legislation in the UK and this paper illustrates the parallels in the environment and proposed response.     

Maritime economics in a Post-Expansion Panama Canal Era

Government recently introduced the Transport Law Reform Bill, which if passed by Parliament, will allow foreign vessels to uplift and discharge cargoes and passengers along the coast of New Zealand. Coastal shipping is part of the domestic transport industry, which has benefitted from deregulation and considerable restructuring over the last decade. This paper provides a brief review of the coastal shipping industry in New Zealand and an overview of international cabotage laws. An alternative open coast shipping policy proposed by the New Zealand Shipping Federation, which is based on ‘level playing fields’ principles, is presented. The scope of cost benefit analysis is outlined and the potential costs and the potential costs and benefits of the Government's open coast shipping policy are summarized. Despite the potential costs to New Zealand of an open coast policy appearing to be considerably greater than the potential benefits. Government officials have not undertaken an empirical cost benefit analysis. The paperr concludes that hte clauses of the Transport Law Reform Bill relating to an open coast policy should be withdrawn and a full empirical cost benefit analysis should be undertaken to determine the best coastal shipping policy for New Zealand.     

Coastal erosion and sea level rise: Implications for ocean beach and San Francisco's westside transport project

Abstract

One of the consequences of sea level rise resulting from the greenhouse effect is increased coastal erosion. This article discusses a model of erosion that can be used to estimate the response of beaches to sea level rise. The model is applied to Ocean Beach, California, with particular attention to the consequences of accelerated erosion for the San Francisco Westside Sewer Transport. Results obtained show that erosion produced by accelerated sea level rise could cause substantial damage to the structure. Large expenditures on beach nourishment will be required to protect the transport and the recreational value of the beach.     

船舶工业对经济增长贡献的实证分析

根据我国船舶工业的发展情况,运用菲德模型分别分析船舶工业对经济增长的直接作用和溢出作用,得出我国船舶工业对经济的溢出作用显著,而直接作用为负,且船舶工业部门的要素边际生产力低于非船舶工业部门的结论,从而提出船舶工业增强科技创新能力、提高要素使用效率和加强产业集聚的对策建议。     

基于物理建模的爆炸效果仿真技术

对爆炸效果进行仿真是现代工业特效的重要内容之一。介绍了基于物理建模的爆炸效果仿真技术的基本原理和主要步骤;综述了控制方程选择、数值方法和后处理等关键技术;总结了基于物理建模的爆炸效果仿真技术的应用现状和发展趋势。文章表明基于物理建模的爆炸效果仿真技术具有巨大的市场需求。     

Promoting social inclusion in a deregulated environment: Extending accessibility using collective taxi-based services

Bus based public transport has enjoyed revitalisation in many urban areas but outside large towns and cities its provision and quality remains erratic. Many rural settlements have infrequent services giving rise to social exclusion through transport disadvantage.The UK Government highlighted a need in Towards a Sustainable Transport System (2007) for radical new thinking on rural accessibility to help meet goals of quality of life and accessibility for all and to help meet the challenge in finding carbon friendly ways of meeting rural transport needs. This paper reports work undertaken for the Commission for Integrated Transport, an advisory body to UK Government, on how shared taxi-schemes could be developed within a deregulated environment to meet rural accessibility needs. This is based on an analysis of institutional barriers and comparison between successful mainland European schemes and UK schemes. The paper considers economic viability and the levels of subsidy currently used to provide accessibility in rural areas to show the potential for making current expenditure on rural transport in the UK ‘work harder’ to deliver a collective taxi-based service as part of the public transport mix so as to increase rural accessibility.     

Topological constraints on the dynamics of wasp-waist ecosystems

Small pelagic fish species like anchovy or sardines are of high ecological and economical importance. As marine food webs are fished down, these small pelagics tend to be more exploited and overfished. It is not yet very well known what the possible effects of their collapse can be, therefore there is an urgent need to outline a theoretical framework for understanding their dynamics. These fish occupy very special position in food webs, ensuring energy transfer between species lower and higher levels, while forming narrow “wasp-waists” poor in number of species (but very abundant). Our purpose was to quantify the interaction structure of model food webs of equal complexity but different levels of “wasp-waistedness”. We analysed the topological properties of the webs by characterising every direct and indirect interactions between individual species, as well as by assessing the relative positional importance of each species in each web. We found that (1) the shorter the interaction pathways considered, the weaker the predictive power of node degree for positional importance, (2) the importance of species varies more in wasp-waist food webs, (3) if longer indirect chain effects are considered, indirect effects can well be stronger than direct ones, (4) interactions between coexisting wasp-waist species are stronger than the average, and (5) the “self-regulatory” looping effects are also stronger for wasp-waist species. Based on the topological properties of the networks, our results describe constraints acting on the dynamical behaviour of wasp-waist ecosystems. We give explanations, from this viewpoint, for regime shifts in which one WW species replaces another, and for the unpredictable dynamics of these fish stocks. From a marine conservation viewpoint, we illustrate that as the abundance of wasp-waist species decreases, the architecture of energy flows becomes highly vulnerable and unreliable. We provide an approach for quantifying these structural changes.     

Relationship between phytoplankton bloom and wind stress in the sub-polar frontal area of the Japan/East Sea

The seasonal dynamics of phytoplankton blooms in the central Japan/East Sea (JES) show pronounced year-to-year variability based on Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS; 19972003) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)/Terra (20002003) observations. Wind seems to strongly influence this variability. To study the relationship between wind and bloom initiation, we analyzed daily, remotely sensed wind stress data (Active Microwave Instrument–wind [AMI–wind], NASA Scatterometer [NSCAT], and Quick Scatterometer [QuickSCAT]: 19972003) and daily chlorophyll concentrations based on ocean color data (SeaWiFS and MODIS). The results agreed well with the hypotheses; in spring, blooms began 615 days after wind stress weakened. Fall blooms started 39 days after wind strengthened. We also simulated seasonal changes using a simple light–nutrient model using two values for the respiration ratio: 10% and 20%. The use of 20% seemed to reproduce the timing of the spring bloom quite well but underestimated the absolute level of chlorophyll concentration. On the other hand, using 10% produced a better estimation of the chlorophyll concentration but failed to match the timing. Neither of the model runs reproduced the timing of the fall bloom well.     

船台测量场中多级转站的不确定度

对在船台测量场内利用全站仪进行多级转站测量时误差的传递过程进行研究,分析误差的来源及其累积方法,建立转站过程中误差传递的数学模型,并据此推导出多级转站测量的系统误差传递公式及其不确定度估计公式。采用蒙特卡洛方法开展考虑全站仪测量误差的多级转站过程仿真试验,并将仿真结果与计算结果相对比。结果表明,提出的误差估计方法能较好地反映多级转站时误差的传递过程和不确定度的分布规律。     

Transit investment and economic development

This paper describes the development of approaches to analysing the links between investment in transit and economic development. It indicates the need to bring together disparate approaches from urban economics and transportation economics to get a full understanding and uses recent results on agglomeration economies to present a more rigorous model of the wider economic benefits of transit investment. Although the evidence increasingly points towards identifiable benefits over and above those captured in conventional transport cost-benefit analysis, the chapter counsels against the assumption of simple rules.     

龙口港航道扩建工程疏浚土输移研究

采用目前国际上广为应用的DELFT3D软件技术,建立潮流、风浪和泥沙即时耦合计算的二维数学模型,研究龙口港航道扩建工程疏浚土扩散问题。模型建成后,通过实测潮流、潮位和长时段地形变化资料,对模型进行有关参数的率定。在计算成果与实测资料达到相似要求后,首先对疏浚土形成的漂浮水质点运动进行分析,得出了漂浮水质点运移轨迹及影响范围,然后对疏浚土形成的悬移泥沙进行模拟,分析了疏浚土随潮流运动扩散输移而引起的悬浮泥沙的可能分布及影响范围。研究结果表明,抛泥区距港区和航道较远,不会对港区、航道造成影响。     

Challenges in the application of spatial computable general equilibrium models for transport appraisal

The use of spatial computable general equilibrium (SCGE) models for assessing the economic impacts of transport projects is one of the key items on the research agenda for project appraisal in the Netherlands. These models are particularly suitable for analysing indirect effects of transport projects through linkages between the transport sector and the wider economy. Potentially, according to the literature, indirect effects that are additional to first-order direct cost reductions can turn out to be up to almost 80% in magnitude of the direct impacts. Given the relevance of these models for policy appraisal, experiences with this new modelling approach are important to report. After two years of development and application of SCGE models for transport appraisal, we found that the translation of theory behind the spatial equilibrium models into practical model specifications and empirical applications is a challenging task, and may lead to problems in project appraisal in terms of inaccuracies in the assessment of impacts. This paper discusses some key challenges we encountered with the specification of the Dutch SCGE model RAEM. This chapter is especially useful for researchers developing SCGE applications for use in transport appraisal and those who want to get a better understanding of differences between theoretical and computable SCGE modelling.