Emerging Public Policy Issues in PPPs

1
Emerging Public Policy Issues in PPPs

• The future has already arrived.
• Its just not very evenly distributed
• William Gibson

2
Generation 1 PPP Policy Issues

• Driven by Ad hoc Project development process
  concerns
• State DOT desire to get off-budget capacity or
  generate immediate up-front revenues
• Contracts designed for financial risk/reward
  sharing and gouge avoidance
• Modest concern for transportation mobility issues
• Impact modest, given small number of projects

3
Generation 2 PPP Issues Very Different

• (presuming continuing expansion of
  tolling/pricing)
• From/To
• Greenfields to Brownfields
• Facilities to Networks
• Projects to Portfolios
• Cost of Capital to Cost to Society
• Revenue Max to Policy Mix
• Single to Dual pricing regimes
• Little thinking to date!!

4
Inescapable Plan/Program Decisionswith More
Priced Facilities

• Pricing to optimize what? -- thruput, revenue,
  LOS, safety, reliability?
• Standardizing tiered service offerings? --
  priced, unpriced, transit?
• Implications of priced network at regional scale?
  -- consistency, continuity?
• Diversion impacts? -- on adjacent streets (now
  area-wide)?
• Profession ill-equipped

5
Related Public Policy Issues within New PPP
Context

• Reconsideration of basic transportation
  objectives (pax and freight)
• Use of revenues (mode, sector, geography)
• User Equity (with new widespread, regional dual
  price system) mode, income, O/D
• Preservation of long-term public flexibility (new
  technology, GCC)
• Impact on concession control, risk, revenue level
  sharing
• What state govt is equipped to deal with these
  issues?

6
Fundamental Institutional Issues

• Do concessions at this scale (long-term, regional
  , multimodal) make sense?
• Who should make policy decisions and allocate
  revenues state DOT vs. metro entity
  (transparency, accountability)
• What kind of decisions (and profits) can be left
  to market vs. public control
• Given unknowns, how can we experiment, increment?
• Where are these issues being discussed?