Long-term Infrastructure Research Articles

Optimal Coordination of Timetable and Infrastructure Development in a Liberalised Railway Market

The gradual liberalisation of the European railway market has so far mainly been assessed regarding its effect on the grade of competition and market access. However, one major impact has not received much attention yet: the effects of the liberalisation on the joint development of timetables and infrastructure. This is especially crucial for countries that align their railway network according to the requirements of the Integrated Timetable (ITF). The implementation of the ITF requires a longterm planning process and network-wide cost-intensive infrastructure measures. Contrary to that, open access traffic can neither be planned in the long-term, nor is it coherent with the ITF. Recent conflicts show that the assignment of train paths for open access traffic considerably affects the system of the ITF, calling for significant timetable and/or infrastructure adaptions. For an efficient and sustainable railway system, a holistic approach is needed allowing for a combination of open access and the requirements of the ITF.To derive a suitable methodology the status quo of the ITF-implementation and open access traffic is analysed in Austria, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands. Based on these findings, three options are identified on how open access can be integrated in an ITF-system according to the EU legislation. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed and finally the optimal procedure in terms of a sustainable network development is recommended.

Africa’s Debt: Three Concerns, Three Remedies

Since 2014, almost all African countries have experienced an increase in public debt and a change in its nature. The ratio of public debt to GDP has doubled, and sovereign debt is changing from concessional credit provided by official agencies to market-based loans from private institutions. This paper attempts to answer three questions that are being asked with increasing urgency to avoid another debt crisis. First, has the quality of institutions and policies of African countries, critical to sustaining higher levels of debt, improved since the debt relief of the early 2000s? Second, will debt markets get to know emerging Africa well enough before the next crisis? Third, have the resolutions of recent defaults in Africa been orderly so that debtor governments are not herded into traps set by foreign creditors? Our calculations suggest that the answer to all three questions is ‘no’. To avoid another debt crisis, the paper recommends preventive measures that involve full transparency in debt accounting, greater realism in growth forecasts, and diligence in matching the region’s seemingly limitless public investment needs with weak public sector capacity to manage infrastructure investments. More specifically, we recommend that as a rule African governments treat increases in commodity prices as temporary — not permanent — shocks; that in deciding how to finance public investment, governments compare the marginal cost of funds from taxation with market terms of borrowing; and that governments avoid financing long-term infrastructure projects with short-term money from abroad.

Small man goes where the large fears to tread: Mining in Guyana: 1990-2018

Mining in Guyana has grown exponentially in the last 25 years, becoming the dominant export industry and engine for growth. Guyana's pathway to economic domination by mineral extraction has taken a distinctly different path from other mineral-intensive countries in that the majority of extraction has been from small and medium scale operators. A single Canadian-owned gold mine was the only representation of the large-scale sector for much of the time period. Guyana's unique mining industry has evolved as a result of the increasing international gold price, its political history and crucially government policy that legalised, regulated and encouraged small and medium scale activity much more prominently than large-scale activities. Chief to this policy position was the establishment of a legislative framework that creates a structure for Guyanese small and medium scale miners to obtain property rights and mine legally.This paper draws on interview evidence and secondary data to reflect upon the impact that this policy position has had upon the economic, social and environmental consequences of the growth of the mining industry in the country. Economically the policy helped to maintain value within Guyana, but may not have fully insulated the country from the resource curse. Although a large value was created for consumption by Guyanese miners and their families, little of this was captured by government for investment in long-term infrastructure. The industry also provided a valuable source of employment for low-skilled local labour, helping to absorb individuals from diminishing industries such as sugar. Socially the industry has created problems such as prostitution, human trafficking and crime, especially in remote areas. However, it may have proved as an important safety valve, providing income and activity for otherwise disaffected low-skilled individuals. Environmentally the industry has created problems due to mercury pollution and deforestation but there is space within the legislative structure for the industry to become an agent of change for restoration and land reclamation.

Multivariate simulation modelling for adaptive long-term infrastructure planning

Infrastructure asset managers are challenged by rapid changes around the world such as urbanisation and climate change. They have to deal with multiple complex and dynamic infrastructure systems that can influence each other and that can be influenced by various uncertain factors. Traditional planning methods are not well suited to complex and dynamic infrastructure environments. However, there are various alternative methods that can be used. This paper presents a simulation model for adaptive long-term infrastructure planning. For this model, a combination of planning and simulation methods is used that can cope with complex and dynamic (infrastructure) environments (i.e. system dynamics, exploratory modelling and analysis and adaptive pathways). This methodology is illustrated with a case consisting of a road system and a lock system in the Netherlands. The approach should be tested further in other cases, but it shows promise in improving the support of infrastructure decision-making in a complex, dynamic and uncertain infrastructure environment.

Begin with the End in Mind: A Unified End-to-End Quality-of-Experience Monitoring, Optimization, and Management Framework

There has been an increasing consensus in the video distribution industry that the design and operation of the full video delivery chain need to be driven by the quality of experience (QoE) appropriate to the end users. Here, we propose a new framework that uses a unified end-to-end solution to produce consistent QoE scores at all points along the delivery chain under the same evaluation criterion. This is a framework that produces a clear picture instantaneously to operation engineers, managing executives, and content creators about how video QoE degrades along the chain; a framework that allows immediate issue identification, localization, and resolution; a framework that enables quality and resource usage optimization; and a framework that provides reliable predictive metrics for long-term strategic resource and infrastructure allocations. The main challenge in the implementation of such a framework is to create a unified QoE metric that not only accurately predicts human QoE but is also lightweight and versatile, readily plugged into multiple points in the video delivery chain. We show that the SSIMPLUS metric offers the best promise, and we demonstrate the benefits of the proposed framework and QoE metric using bandwidth optimization as an example.

Green Bonds as an Instrument to Finance Low Carbon Transition

The present paper examines the role that green bonds can play in financing the transition to low carbon economy. We first establish the need for central banks to respond to climate change challenges and we present the main ways in which they can get involved. We explain why green bonds should be used to instrument of choice for financing the low carbon transition, based, on the one hand, on the theoretical argument of intergenerational burden sharing and, on the other hand, on the practical need of large long-term infrastructure investments. After defining green bonds, we present their main characteristics. We then summarize the development of the green bond market in the last decade. We conclude by presenting ways in which to respond to existing challenges and barriers, so that the green bonds market develops further.

Совершенствование оценки кредитоспособности заемщиков, реализующих долгосрочные инвестиционные проекты

Development of the long-term investment market is a condition for the formation of the main factors of economic growth and successful implementation of long-term infrastructure projects in modern Russia. The role of bank lending for long-term investment projects is to increase against the background of the consequences of the economic crisis and budget deficit. The article presents bank performance indicators for financing of long-term investment (infrastructure) projects. The author draws a conclusion on the dominant position of banks with state participation in long-term lending. The article considers the factors affecting the tendency of banks to long-term lending. The author also analyzes the practical experience of large domestic banks’ participation in financing of long-term investment projects. Problems and credit risks of long-term investment projects are identified. In conclusion, the author formulates recommendations on the directions and tools to improve the system for assessing the credit risks of investment projects in commercial banks. It is recommended to supplement this system with indicators of the structure of long-term investments, profitability of permanent capital and stability of the loaner’s efficient operation, as well as to ensure additional consideration of risk factors. The author defines the measures to expand the practice of syndicated lending, improving the mechanism providing state guarantees, and developing tools for cooperation between the bank and the loaner as promising areas for the development of long-term loans.

Seeing Like a Great City: The Political Motivation of Subway Construction in China

Why do politicians who have short tenure expectations have incentives to invest in long-term infrastructure projects? This mismatch between politicians' short tenures and the long-term needed for infrastructure projects to come to fruition is generally expected to result in under-investment in critical infrastructure. However, recent data show that China makes massive investments in large-scale, long-term transportation projects. By proposing a political exchange model, we demonstrate a fundamental synergy between the incentives of short-term mayors and of provincial leaders that is realized as a result of subway projects. With both a difference-in-differences design and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we show that subway projects significantly increase the promotion chances of city mayors. Additional tests also confirm the mechanism of our theory. Mayors who obtain subway projects deliver economic benefits to provincial leaders. The provincial politicians' prospects of promotion are significantly improved thanks to these economic returns.

Accelerated Exploration for Long-Term Urban Water Infrastructure Planning through Machine Learning

In this study, the neural network method (Multi-Layer Perceptron, MLP) was integrated with an explorative model, to study the feasibility of using machine learning to reduce the exploration time but providing the same support in long-term water system adaptation planning. The specific network structure and training pattern were determined through a comprehensive statistical trial-and-error (considering the distribution of errors). The network was applied to the case study in Scotchman’s Creek, Melbourne. The network was trained with the first 10% of the exploration data, validated with the following 5% and tested on the rest. The overall root-mean-square-error between the entire observed data and the predicted data is 10.5722, slightly higher than the validation result (9.7961), suggesting that the proposed trial-and-error method is reliable. The designed MLP showed good performance dealing with spatial randomness from decentralized strategies. The adoption of MLP-supported planning may overestimate the performance of candidate urban water systems. By adopting the safety coefficient, a multiplicator or exponent calculated by observed data and predicted data in the validation process, the overestimation problem can be controlled in an acceptable range and have few impacts on final decision making.

A Community-Partnered Approach to Developing Church-Based Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities Among African-Americans and Latinos.

Faith and public health partnerships offer promise to addressing health disparities, but examples that incorporate African-Americans and Latino congregations are lacking. Here we present results from developing a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational faith and public health partnership to address health disparities through community-based participatory research (CBPR), focusing on several key issues: (1) the multi-layered governance structure and activities to establish the partnership and identify initial health priority (obesity), (2) characteristics of the congregations recruited to partnership (n = 66), and (3) the lessons learned from participating congregations' past work on obesity that informed the development of a multi-level, multi-component, church-based intervention. Having diverse staff with deep ties in the faith community, both among researchers and the primary community partner agency, was key to recruiting African-American and Latino churches. Involvement by local health department and community health clinic personnel provided technical expertise and support regarding health data and clinical resources. Selecting a health issue-obesity-that affected all subgroups (e.g., African-Americans and Latinos, women and men, children and adults) garnered high enthusiasm among partners, as did including some innovative aspects such as a text/e-mail messaging component and a community mapping exercise to identify issues for advocacy. Funding that allowed for an extensive community engagement and planning process was key to successfully implementing a CBPR approach. Building partnerships through which multiple CBPR initiatives can be done offers efficiencies and sustainability in terms of programmatic activities, though long-term infrastructure grants, institutional support, and non-research funding from local foundations and health systems are likely needed.

Cost and time implications of abandoned project resuscitation

PurposeThis paper aims to determine the effect of the period of abandonment on the final cost and duration of resuscitated tertiary educational building projects as a basis for enhancing the performance metrics of the projects and improving the availability of facilities in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachA structured questionnaire was administered on 47 professionals involved in the physical development of construction projects in Osun State public tertiary educational institutions to provide primary data for the study. Secondary data relating to initial and final costs, initial and final completion dates, dates of abandonment, period of abandonment, date of re-award, etc. were obtained from selected resuscitated projects. Data were analyzed using relative significance index and regression analysis.FindingsThe most significant effects of project abandonment were found to be disappointment of populace and over-stretching of existing facilities. The study showed a directly proportional and an exponential effect of period of abandonment on percentage cost overrun of resuscitated projects, which were represented by yc = −329.755 + 19.545x and yc = 6.1662e0.0506x, respectively. A linear relationship between period of abandonment and percentage time overrun was represented by yt = 0.467 + 0.816x.Research limitations/implicationsThe fact that the regression equations could not be validated because of paucity of data was identified as a limitation of this study.Practical implicationsThis study adds to the body of knowledge on abandonment of building projects from a quantitative perspective. Findings have implications for guiding long-term infrastructure development plans in public tertiary educational institutions.Originality/valueMaximum threshold at which abandoned projects may be resuscitated at an economic cost was established as 16 months. Findings further suggest that the economy of new construction would outweigh resuscitation of abandoned projects beyond this period.

The rise of public-private partnerships in China

This paper examines the rise of public-private partnerships in the longitudinal context of China’s infrastructure finance system since 1978. The system has been characterized by the use of alternative infrastructure finance, including land transfer fees, various types of indirect local government borrowing, and, more recently, the rise of public-private partnerships. While contributing significantly to the unprecedented infrastructure boom, alternative finance sources also raised concerns of fiscal sustainability in China. PPP cannot be an effective way to reduce local governments’ high reliance on debt financing. It is time for the country to develop a more balanced capital structure with ongoing funding support to keep up its long-term infrastructure development.

Sharia-Compliant financing for public utility infrastructure

Large-scale and long-term infrastructure projects can struggle to find sufficient financing. Globally, there are expanding efforts to mobilize international financial resources. This paper argues that Sharia-compliant financing represents a potential opportunity as a financial resource for public utility projects. Sharia compliance requires consistency of all transactions with Islamic financial principles. This paper describes Sharia-compliant financing principles and criteria, reviews various financing instruments, and summarizes their use in a variety of utility infrastructure projects across the globe.

Remembering Financial Crises: The Risk Implications of the Rise of Institutional Investors in Project Finance

Barely a decade ago, a cascading sequence of market failures threatened to topple the global financial system. Public responses to the recent Financial Crisis were immediate and drastic to resuscitate the global economy while attempting to make the markets safer. Many financial services sectors have since recovered to pre-crisis levels. One such industry is project finance, which comprises various financing arrangements often used to fund long-term infrastructure or industrial projects. Curiously, significant post-crisis banking regulations and other global credit enhancement initiatives are pushing banks out of project finance and giving rise to institutional investors. This Comment argues that animated institutional activity in project finance may increase both financial and, more notably, governance risks. Further, increased institutional investment in project finance shifts the risk intended to be captured under new banking regulations to unregulated markets and makes the financial system more complex and interconnected. Ultimately, public responses to the Financial Crisis may have the unintended consequence of increasing project-level risks and injecting seemingly regulated systemic risk back into the global financial system.

Building Foresight in Long-Term Infrastructure Planning Using End-Effect Mitigation Models

This paper applies the end-effect mitigation models to build foresight into long-term infrastructure planning problems. This paper describes the phenomenon of end effects; presents four different models that address it, namely extended simulation, salvage value, and primal and dual equilibria; and applies them to long-term energy system planning problems with finite resources for investments. The planning model is a simultaneous multiperiod linear optimization model that plans for energy system infrastructures at the national scale. Two instances of this model are considered: 1) a small-scale five-node model; and 2) a medium-to-large-scale 13-node model. These instances are used to assess and quantify: 1) the end effects of using investment solutions; and 1) the efficacy of each mitigation methods in terms of accuracy and computational time. The illustrations demonstrate that, without attributing the long-term infrastructure planning with some level of foresight about the future cost and performance of the technologies, the resulting portfolio will have end effects in terms of: 1) investment bias toward low-cost resources at the end years; and 2) adopting low-cost quick fixes (such as excess cofiring) to meet near-term emission targets, both of which may render the model to lose sight of long-term targets and economics.

The effect of Pok\xe9mon Go on the pulse of the city: a natural experiment

Pokémon Go, a location-based game that uses augmented reality techniques, received unprecedented media coverage due to claims that it allowed for greater access to public spaces, increasing the number of people out on the streets, and generally improving health, social, and security indices. However, the true impact of Pokémon Go on people’s mobility patterns in a city is still largely unknown. In this paper, we perform a natural experiment using data from mobile phone networks to evaluate the effect of Pokémon Go on the pulse of a big city: Santiago, capital of Chile. We found significant effects of the game on the floating population of Santiago compared to movement prior to the game’s release in August 2016: in the following week, up to 13.8% more people spent time outside at certain times of the day, even if they do not seem to go out of their usual way. These effects were found by performing regressions using count models over the states of the cellphone network during each day under study. The models used controlled for land use, daily patterns, and points of interest in the city.Our results indicate that, on business days, there are more people on the street at commuting times, meaning that people did not change their daily routines but slightly adapted them to play the game. Conversely, on Saturday and Sunday night, people indeed went out to play, but favored places close to where they live.Even if the statistical effects of the game do not reflect the massive change in mobility behavior portrayed by the media, at least in terms of expanse, they do show how ‘the street’ may become a new place of leisure. This change should have an impact on long-term infrastructure investment by city officials, and on the drafting of public policies aimed at stimulating pedestrian traffic.

Sharing individual patient and parasite-level data through the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network platform: A qualitative case study

Background: Increasingly, biomedical researchers are encouraged or required by research funders and journals to share their data, but there's very little guidance on how to do that equitably and usefully, especially in resource-constrained settings. We performed an in-depth case study of one data sharing pioneer: the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN). Methods: The case study included a records review, a quantitative analysis of WAARN-related publications, in-depth interviews with 47 people familiar with WWARN, and a witness seminar involving a sub-set of 11 interviewees. Results: WWARN originally aimed to collate clinical, in vitro, pharmacological and molecular data into linked, open-access databases intended to serve as a public resource to guide antimalarial drug treatment policies. Our study describes how WWARN navigated challenging institutional and academic incentive structures, alongside funders' reluctance to invest in capacity building in malaria-endemic countries, which impeded data sharing. The network increased data contributions by focusing on providing free, online tools to improve the quality and efficiency of data collection, and by inviting collaborative authorship on papers addressing policy-relevant questions that could only be answered through pooled analyses. By July 1, 2016, the database included standardised data from 103 molecular studies and 186 clinical trials, representing 135,000 individual patients. Developing the database took longer and cost more than anticipated, and efforts to increase equity for data contributors are on-going. However, analyses of the pooled data have generated new methods and influenced malaria treatment recommendations globally. Despite not achieving the initial goal of real-time surveillance, WWARN has developed strong data governance and curation tools, which are now being adapted relatively quickly for other diseases. Conclusions: To be useful, data sharing requires investment in long-term infrastructure. To be feasible, it requires new incentive structures that favour the generation of reusable knowledge.

Electricity demand planning forecasts should consider climate non-stationarity to maintain reserve margins during heat waves

Climate non-stationarity is a challenge for electric power infrastructure reliability; recordbreaking heat waves significantly affect peak demand [1], lower contingency capacities, and expose cities to risk of blackouts due to component failures and security threats. The United States’ electric grid operates safely for a wide range of load, weather, and power quality conditions. Projected increases in ambient air temperatures could, however, create operating conditions that place the grid outside the boundaries of current reliability tolerances. Advancements in long-term forecasting, including projections of rising air temperatures and more severe heat waves, present opportunities to advance risk management methods for long-term infrastructure planning. This is particularly evident in the US Southwest—a relatively hot region expected to experience significant temperature increases affecting electric loads, generation, and delivery systems. Generation capacity is typically built to meet the 90th percentile (T90) hottest peak demand, plus an additional reserve margin of least 15%, but that may not be sufficient to ensure reliable power services if air temperatures are higher than expected. The problem with this T90 planning approach is that it requires a stationary climate to be completely effective. In reality, annual temperature differences can have more than a 15% effect on system performance. Current long-term infrastructure planning and risk management processes are biased climate data choices that can significantly underestimate peak demand, overestimate generation capacity, and result in major power outages during heat waves.This study used downscaled global climate models (GCMs) to evaluate the effects of non-stationarity on air temperature forecasts, and a new high-level statistical approach was developed to consider the subsequent effects on peak demand, power generation, and local reserve margins (LRMs) compared to previous forecasting methods. Air temperature projections in IPCC RCPs 4.5 and 8.5 are that increases up to 6°C are possible by the end of century, with highs of 58°C and 56°C in Phoenix, Arizona and Los Angeles, California respectively. In the hottest scenarios, we estimated that LRMs for the two metro regions would be on average 30% less than at respective T90s, which in the case of Los Angeles (a net importer) would require 5GW of additional power to meet electrical demand. We calculated these values by creating a structural equation model (SEM) for peak demand based on the physics of common AC units; physics-based models are necessary to predict demand under unprecedented conditions for which historical data do not exist. The SEM forecasts for peak demand were close to straight-line regression methods as in prior literature from 25–40°C (104°F), but diverged lower at higher temperatures. Power plant generation capacity derating factors were also modeled based on the electrical and thermal performance characteristics of different technologies. Lastly, we discussed several strategic options to reduce the risk of LRM shortages; including implementing technology, market incentives, and urban forms that reduce peak load and load variance per capita as well as their tradeoffs with several other stakeholder objectives.

Whatever happened to the Golden Age of natural gas?

Recent technology innovation in the natural gas industry has powered a shale gas boom, enabling the narrative that natural gas is a transition fuel to a low-carbon future. However, this narrative has not manifested itself uniformly around the world and, more fundamentally, it must be tested and revised periodically to reflect rapidly changing market, supply chain, and environmental realities. The growth in production has put downward pressure on prices, incentivized increased consumption and trade in the coming years, leading to the coming of age of the global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG). LNG from areas with high levels of production can increasingly respond to demand growth elsewhere; however, questions about infrastructure availability, competition with other energy sources, and end use blur our understanding about environmental outcomes. New markets for natural gas face new medium and long-term challenges through capital investments in long-term infrastructure which creates a risk of displacing lower carbon options and prolonging higher emitting facilities. We explore the narrative of natural gas as a transition fuel, and how it has thus far manifested itself in various key markets. The United States is our region of focus on the supply side due to the recent shale gas boom and emission reductions from the coal-to-gas transition in the power sector. We make reference to producing regions involved in the international trade of liquefied natural gas. Questions related to demand from the European Union, OECD Asia, and parts of non-OECD Asia are discussed. China and India—representing the centers of prolific anticipated demand growth—are discussed in terms of challenges to domestic supply growth and competing environmental and political objectives.

Sharing individual patient and parasite-level data through the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network platform: A qualitative case study.

Increasingly, biomedical researchers are encouraged or required by research funders and journals to share their data, but there's very little guidance on how to do that equitably and usefully, especially in resource-constrained settings. We performed an in-depth case study of one data sharing pioneer: the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN). The case study included a records review, a quantitative analysis of WAARN-related publications, in-depth interviews with 47 people familiar with WWARN, and a witness seminar involving a sub-set of 11 interviewees. WWARN originally aimed to collate clinical, in vitro, pharmacological and molecular data into linked, open-access databases intended to serve as a public resource to guide antimalarial drug treatment policies. Our study describes how WWARN navigated challenging institutional and academic incentive structures, alongside funders' reluctance to invest in capacity building in malaria-endemic countries, which impeded data sharing. The network increased data contributions by focusing on providing free, online tools to improve the quality and efficiency of data collection, and by inviting collaborative authorship on papers addressing policy-relevant questions that could only be answered through pooled analyses. By July 1, 2016, the database included standardised data from 103 molecular studies and 186 clinical trials, representing 135,000 individual patients. Developing the database took longer and cost more than anticipated, and efforts to increase equity for data contributors are on-going. However, analyses of the pooled data have generated new methods and influenced malaria treatment recommendations globally. Despite not achieving the initial goal of real-time surveillance, WWARN has developed strong data governance and curation tools, which are now being adapted relatively quickly for other diseases. To be useful, data sharing requires investment in long-term infrastructure. To be feasible, it requires new incentive structures that favour the generation of reusable knowledge.