Attractiveness of transportation infrastructure projects to private-sector financing - Assessing the hierarchical analysis, risk scenario method

A method to identify the attractiveness for private financing of a transport infrastructure project is presented. The objective of the method is to assist the public sector in identifying the attractiveness of a transportation infrastructure project for private financing, highlighting the factors that tend to reduce such attractiveness and providing the means to examine the liability of alternative risk-allocation scenarios related to risks undertaken by the state or private sector. The method allows for the simulation of the private sector's attitude toward risk, employing practices of risk assessment in investments. Its innovation lies in how the whole process is structured so that participants understand beforehand whether an agreement can be concluded and which factors involved are critical. A key property of the method is the ease by which priorities of different risk components are synthesized into a hierarchical form through pairwise comparisons, This method, although targeted primarily for the public sector, could assist both private and public stakeholders investing in transport infrastructure projects (termed private-public partnerships) to reach an agreement. Basically, it is an interactive process characterized by the conflicting objectives and judgments of both public and private sectors.