Robust public-private partnerships for joint railway and property development

Abstract

The involvement of the private sector in the construction or operation of an infrastructure project may enhance the financial viability of projects, which facilitates the formation of public-private partnership (PPP) for project delivery. PPP exploits the strength of the private sector by shifting certain project risks from the public party to the private sector who can efficiently manage certain risks. In joint railway and housing development, the approach of bundling railway and housing development (R&HD) allows cross-subsidization between immense railway construction cost and profitable housing rental revenue. This approach also provides flexibility in incorporating PPP models by distributing railway and housing revenues and costs and their inherent risks properly to the public and private sectors. Ng and Lo (2015a) developed an evaluation framework for joint railway and property development, which evaluates PPPs based on financial and construction criteria for selecting the best suitable PPP for a particular project. This study, which is based on the framework in Ng and Lo (2015a), aims to examine the robustness of various PPP configurations. This study analyzes the effects of PPP configurations on stakeholders’ risks and returns under population or demand growth and railway construction cost uncertainties. The eventual outcome of particular PPP configurations is also examined. This study also seeks to answer the following questions: How would optimal configuration change under highly volatile population and railway construction cost? Are there PPP configurations that are robust to these uncertainties and those that are sensitive to a particular uncertainty? This understanding is critical for managing risks and facilitating the formation of appropriate PPP for R&HD.

Keywords

public-private partnership / BFOOD / housing and railway development

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by the General Research Funds of the Research Grants Council of the HKSAR Government (Grant Nos. 616113 and 16222216).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2017 The Author(s) 2017. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)