IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v43y2009i2p219-229.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regulating concessions of toll motorways: An empirical study on fixed vs. variable term contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Albalate, Daniel
  • Bel, Germà

Abstract

Recent theoretical developments on concession contracts for long term infrastructure projects under uncertain demand show the benefits of allowing for flexible term contracts rather than fixing a rigid term. This study presents a simulation to compare both alternatives by using real data from the oldest Spanish toll motorways. For this purpose, we analyze how well the flexible term would have performed instead of the fixed length actually established. Our results show a huge reduction of the term of concession that would have dramatically decreased the firm's benefits and the user's overpayment due to the internalization of an unexpected traffic increase.

Suggested Citation

  • Albalate, Daniel & Bel, Germà, 2009. "Regulating concessions of toll motorways: An empirical study on fixed vs. variable term contracts," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 219-229, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:43:y:2009:i:2:p:219-229
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965-8564(08)00202-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eduardo Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2003. "Privatizing Highways in Latin America: Fixing What Went Wrong," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2003), pages 129-164, August.
    2. Ginés de Rus & Manuel Romero, 2004. "Private financing of roads and optimal pricing: Is it possible to get both?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 38(3), pages 485-497, September.
    3. Ubbels, Barry & Verhoef, Erik T., 2008. "Auctioning concessions for private roads," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 155-172, January.
    4. Robinson, James A. & Torvik, Ragnar, 2005. "White elephants," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 197-210, February.
    5. Nombela, Gustavo & de Rus, Ginés, 2004. "Flexible-term contracts for road franchising," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 163-179, March.
    6. Eduardo M.R.A. Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2003. "Privatizing Highways in Latin America: Is It Possible to Fix What Went Wrong?," Working Papers 866, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    7. J. Luis Guasch, 2004. "Granting and Renegotiating Infrastructure Concessions : Doing it Right," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15024.
    8. Germà Bel & John Foote, 2007. "Comparison of Recent Toll Road Concession Transactions in the United States and France," Working Papers XREAP2007-11, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Nov 2007.
    9. Vickrey, William S, 1969. "Congestion Theory and Transport Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 251-260, May.
    10. Antonio Estache & Gines De Rus, 2000. "Privatization and Regulation of Transport Infrastructure : Guidelines for Policymakers and Regulators," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15199.
    11. Holgui­n-Veras, Jose & Cetin, Mecit & Xia, Shuwen, 2006. "A comparative analysis of US toll policy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 852-871, December.
    12. Eduardo M. R. A. Engel & Ronald D. Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2001. "Least-Present-Value-of-Revenue Auctions and Highway Franchising," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 993-1020, October.
    13. de Palma, André & Kilani, Moez & Lindsey, Robin, 2005. "Congestion pricing on a road network: A study using the dynamic equilibrium simulator METROPOLIS," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(7-9), pages 588-611.
    14. Engel, Eduardo & Fischer, Ronald & Galetovic, Alexander, 1997. "Highway Franchising: Pitfalls and Opportunities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 68-72, May.
    15. Bel, Germi & Fageda, Xavier, 2005. "Is a Mixed Funding Model for the Highway Network Sustainable Over Time The Spanish Case," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 187-203, January.
    16. Nakamura, Katsuhiko & Kockelman, Kara Maria, 2002. "Congestion pricing and roadspace rationing: an application to the San Francisco Bay Bridge corridor," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 403-417, June.
    17. Chen, Anthony & Subprasom, Kitti, 2007. "Analysis of regulation and policy of private toll roads in a build-operate-transfer scheme under demand uncertainty," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 537-558, July.
    18. José M. Vassallo, 2006. "Traffic Risk Mitigation in Highway Concession Projects: The Experience of Chile," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 40(3), pages 359-381, September.
    19. Daniel Albalate & Germa Bel & Xavier Fageda, 2007. "Privatization and regulation of toll motorways in europe," IREA Working Papers 200704, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Mar 2007.
    20. Hinojosa, Sergio & Gomez-Lobo, Andres, 2000. "Broad roads in a thin country - infrastructure concessions in Chile," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2279, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meng, Qiang & Lu, Zhaoyang, 2017. "Quantitative analyses of highway franchising under build-operate-transfer scheme: Critical review and future research directions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 105-123.
    2. Tan, Zhijia & Yang, Hai, 2012. "Flexible build-operate-transfer contracts for road franchising under demand uncertainty," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1419-1439.
    3. Feng, Zhuo & Zhang, Yiwen & Zhang, Shuibo & Song, Jinbo, 2018. "Contracting and renegotiating with a loss-averse private firm in BOT road projects," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 40-72.
    4. Zhang, Yiwen & Feng, Zhuo & Zhang, Shuibo, 2018. "The effects of concession period structures on BOT road contracts," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 106-125.
    5. Shi, Shasha & An, Qingxian & Chen, Ke, 2020. "Optimal choice of capacity, toll, and subsidy for build-operate-transfer roads with a paid minimum traffic guarantee," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 228-254.
    6. Beria, Paolo & Ramella, Francesco & Laurino, Antonio, 2015. "Motorways economic regulation: A worldwide survey," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 23-32.
    7. Shi, Shasha & Yin, Yafeng & An, Qingxian & Chen, Ke, 2021. "Optimal build-operate-transfer road contracts under information asymmetry and uncertainty," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 65-86.
    8. Ginés Rus & M. Socorro, 2010. "Infrastructure Investment and Incentives with Supranational Funding," Transition Studies Review, Springer;Central Eastern European University Network (CEEUN), vol. 17(3), pages 551-567, September.
    9. Eduardo Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2013. "The Basic Public Finance Of Public–Private Partnerships," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 83-111, February.
    10. Tan, Zhijia & Yang, Hai & Guo, Xiaolei, 2010. "Properties of Pareto-efficient contracts and regulations for road franchising," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 415-433, May.
    11. Vassallo, José Manuel, 2010. "The role of the discount rate in tendering highway concessions under the LPVR approach," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 806-814, December.
    12. Kang, Chao-Chung & Lee, Tsun-Siou & Huang, Szu-Chi, 2013. "Royalty bargaining in Public–Private Partnership projects: Insights from a theoretic three-stage game auction model," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-14.
    13. Diego Aycinena & Rimvydas Baltaduonis & Lucas Rentschler, 2014. "Valuation structure in first-price and least-revenue auctions: an experimental investigation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 100-128, March.
    14. Jin, Hongyu & Liu, Shijing & Sun, Jide & Liu, Chunlu, 2021. "Determining concession periods and minimum revenue guarantees in public-private-partnership agreements," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(2), pages 512-524.
    15. Wu, Di & Yin, Yafeng & Lawphongpanich, Siriphong, 2011. "Optimal selection of build–operate-transfer projects on transportation networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1699-1709.
    16. Lu, Zhaoyang & Meng, Qiang, 2017. "Analysis of optimal BOT highway capacity and economic toll adjustment provisions under traffic demand uncertainty," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 17-37.
    17. Feng, Zhuo & Song, Jinbo & Yang, Xiaoxing & Guo, Ran, 2023. "Contractual flexibility, firm effort, and subsidy design: A comparison of PPP project contracts," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(1), pages 484-496.
    18. Nicolas Campos & Eduardo Engel & Ronald D. Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2019. "Renegotiations and corruption in infrastructure: The Odebrecht case," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0230, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    19. Chandan Kumar, 2018. "Role of bidding method and risk allocation in the performance of public private partnership (PPP) projects," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2018-013, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    20. van den Berg, Vincent A.C. & Rouwendal, Jan, 2016. "Tender auctions with existing operators bidding," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 1-10.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    H54 L33 L43 L92 Toll motorways Privatization Concessions Regulation;

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
    • L43 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Legal Monopolies and Regulation or Deregulation
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:43:y:2009:i:2:p:219-229. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.