Key Points:
There are two quite different responses to the reduced
appetite of private sector investors to traffic risk, with
different implications.
Critics of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for road
projects have declared it dead, never to be revived. The
justification for this view is founded mainly on the financial
troubles of various road projects in recent years, which some have
attributed – wrongly – to the PPP model itself. In fact
the primary cause of financial troubles of road PPPs has been
overly ambitious traffic projections.
Despite the criticism and negative media attention, the road PPP
model is far from dead. The PPP model is alive and kicking, having
evolved in response to market conditions in several significant
ways.
