Abstract
The practice of implementing infrastructure projects through a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement is widely employed around the world with successful outcomes. However, this practice is not without challenges related to cost, time and quality variations, which the public is forced to bear. This study aims to explore factors influencing the termination of the East West Link project in Melbourne and present time and cost variation challenges facing the Sydney Light Rail project. This paper utilizes literature, investigating the critical success factors (CSF) for PPP infrastructure projects in an international context, and other readily available data sources such as Australian government publications, the case projects’ reports, news articles, and websites as the sources of data. The data gathered from these sources was then analysed to understand the project challenges and to investigate the relationship between CSF and the challenges. Four challenges were identified, including insufficiency of the business case, political interference, non-independence of implementing organizations and insufficient risk profile identification. The findings can assist to cover the loopholes that might cause similar failures in project planning, risk management, and policy and guideline frameworks. However, efforts should be made in improving the existing policies to accommodate political interests as part of risk measures under the national PPP guidelines.
Highlights
The practice of using the public-private partnership (PPP) model for the delivery of big projects in Australia has been around for more than 20 years (Wilson, Pelham, and Duffield, 2010)
The 2015 termination of Melbourne’s largest infrastructure project, ‘East West Link’ (Victorian Auditor General’s Office, 2015)(VAGO), and the current challenges facing another large project in the state of New South Wales (NSW ), the ‘Sydney Light Rail’, are both examples of PPP arrangements within this environment of expertise in project planning, delivery and years of experience, where one would expect such projects to be implemented successfully, with minor or zero challenges
We present the main findings and discusses factors that have contributed to the termination of the East-West Link (EWL) project, current challenges facing the Sydney light rail (SLR) project and their relationship to the scholar’s perspectives on the PPP critical success factors
Summary
The practice of using the public-private partnership (PPP) model for the delivery of big projects in Australia has been around for more than 20 years (Wilson, Pelham, and Duffield, 2010). Australia is one of many countries in the world that successfully employ the practice of PPP (Cheung, Chan and Kajewski, 2012). To improve the implementation of PPP projects, countries have developed policies, guidelines, frameworks, and broad experience to successfully realize PPP infrastructure projects. The National Public Private Partnership Guidelines (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008) policies and laws have been developed by the Australian Federal and State Governments to help people understand and run PPP projects successfully. Despite the extensive knowledge and resources available, Australia is still experiencing unsuccessful practices in implementing some of its PPP infrastructure projects. Some projects fall short during the implementation process as indicated above
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