Comparing Public-Private Partnership with Traditional Delivery of Transportation Projects: A Duration Analysis

Original study by Kunqi Zhang, R. Richard Geddes and Qingbin Cui

This paper examines the proposition that public-private partnerships, or P3s, are a tool for accelerating project delivery.  The authors assert that “no researchers have compared durations of procurement and implementation processes for comparable-sized transportation projects between P3 and traditional delivery methods, perhaps because of a dearth of high-quality data and limited statistical power”.  The paper therefore addresses this gap in the literature by empirically analysing the duration of procurement and implementation of transportation projects in the US.

The paper provides a detailed description of the differences between traditional procurement and innovative delivery approaches.  Design-bid-build (DBB) contracts are referred to as traditional procurement.  Innovative delivery refers to P3 models which bundle design-build (DB) with other services provided by the private partner.  Examples of bundled contracts include (1) private financing, implying a design-build-finance (DBF) contract (2) operation and maintenance (O&M), implying a design-build-operate-maintain (DBOM) contract. (3) A P3 that includes all elements design-build-finance-operate-maintain contracts (DBFOM).

As the paper is focused on the duration of procurement and implementation periods it pays special attention to describing how these stages differ under traditional (DBB) versus innovative (P3/DB) approaches.  The paper provides a detailed comparison of the workings of P3/DB versus DBB.  For DBB projects the descriptions clearly define (1) construction preparation process (2) design process (3) procurement process and (4) construction process.  It also sets out clear definitions of the (1) procurement process, (2) design process, (3) construction preparation process and (4) construction process under PPP.

Hypotheses

The paper reviews the relevant literature on procurement and P3s to develop hypotheses concerning the procurement and implementation of major transport projects.  A total of twenty-one hypotheses are developed relating to the effect of the following factors: (1) delivery method (P3/DB versus DBB); (2) technical capacity; (3) project size; (4) project type; (5) innovative financing and (6) context complexity.  Due to space constraints the following paragraphs provides a sample of these hypotheses.

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