Gross domestic product (GDP) is generally considered as the most important index and comprehensive measure of the size of economy. This paper investigates empirically the relationship between transport infrastructure (focus on highways) and GDP growth based on a production function approach. The physical stocks of transport infrastructure were used instead of monetary data to measure public capital together with several other variables (labor and private capital) that were hypothesized to affect economic growth. Then we explore a number of subsequent studies that use panel data covering the period between 1992 and 2004. An investigation was done to compare developed countries and developing countries. Results indicate that physical units are positively and significantly related to economic growth. Furthermore there was an interesting finding that the output elasticity with respect to physical units for developed countries is higher than developing countries.

<p>In October 2000 the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) was launched. The purpose of the IIRSA is to improve integration of the South American countries and intraregional trade between them. One of the ultimate goals is to promote sustainable growth. The purpose of this paper is to find out if a better quantity and quality of transport infrastructure increases intraregional trade in South America. It is found that the quantity of transport infrastructure increases intraregional trade. On the other hand, there is no evidence for the quality of transport infrastructure increasing intraregional trade in South America. Furthermore, this paper investigates whether economic growth can be obtained through more trade. In other words, this paper examines if trade causes growth. The results do not confirm the trade-growth causality for all countries. The difference between the existence of a trade-growth causal relationship or not could be explained by the core commodities that the different South American countries export.</p>

China’s mega-regions, in addition to cities and metropolitan areas, have become the engines for economic development, and the target areas for regional and national policies. Reflecting upon China’s current path of regional urbanization, the proposed research examines a fundamental issue for China’s megaregional development: the impact of transport network development on the spatial pattern of China’s megaregions. Using the multiple national Censuses (1982, 1990, 2000, 2010) and the transport network GIS data in the corresponding years, this research 1) constructs measures of megaregional spatial patterns, 2) assesses the spatial trajectory of megaregional growth based on the differentiated growth rates of metropolitan cities, 3) computes indicators of megaregional transport network connectivity and accessibility, 4) examines the impacts of transportation infrastructure on megaregional growth trajectory. This research helps understand the spatial structure of China’s megaregions with newly constructed quantitative measures of polycentric spatial development, as well as the intra-megaregion and inter-megaregion variation of transport network in China. It also clarifies the link between transport infrastructure and megaregional spatial structure in China’s unique context by providing quantitative evaluation of the implications of transport investment for the spatial pattern in Chinese megaregions. Finally it enriches the megaregional solutions to China’s vision of economic, social and environmental sustainability.

1 Název diplomové práce v anglickém jazyce, abstrakt v anglickém jazyce a 3 klíčová slova v anglickém jazyce Legal aspects of PPP projects realization Abstract The aim of this diploma thesis is to investigate the legal area of PPP projects regulation and their potential use in the construction of highway infrastructure in the Czech Republic. The inadequate state of Czech highways and search for new financial resources opened again the topic of private capital use through PPP. PPP is an abbreviation for public-private partnership where a public service or specific infrastructure is provided by a private partner. The first part explains the characteristics of PPP projects and their possible advantages and disadvantages as well as a brief description of historical development and distribution of public- private partnerships into the common types used. The second part illuminates the legal aspects of realization by the individual phases of implementation. It starts with a selection process, deciding on what the project will be financed from. Furthermore, it is necessary to specify in the contract the rights and obligations of the parties. This is also associated with risk allocation. The next stage its the actual realization with which the treatment of risks, that have already occurred, is related. In addition,...

Este trabalho realiza um exercício de planejamento estratégico de transportes com foco na infraestrutura de escoamento da produção agrícola da região Centro-Oeste do Brasil. O trabalho parte da compreensão dos fundamentos do planejamento estratégico da infraestrutura de transportes, avalia o pretenso planejamento brasileiro e compreende porque ele não é de fato um planejamento estratégico. A compreensão da multidisciplinaridade dos objetivos do planejamento orienta um tratamento multicritério. A partir da definição de objetivos o autor aplica o método Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) e elenca, através de indicadores, uma ordem de prioridades na execução de um conjunto de obras na região. A partir do exercício simplificado orienta um trabalho de maior envergadura em termos de escopo e metodologia que deveria ser feito para um efetivo planejamento estratégico de infraestrutura de transportes para Brasil. / This study develops an exercise of strategic planning of a transport system for the handling of agricultural products of Brazil\'s Midwest. The work begins by exploring the concepts underlying the strategic planning of a transport infrastructure. Thereafter, it assesses the document presented by the Brazilian government as the national transport system strategic planning, and argues that this document does not fulfill the characteristics of a typical strategic planning. The consideration of the diverse objectives of the strategic planning requires a multi- criteria approach. The author lists several general objectives to guide the transport system strategic planning and employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to define the priority ones. The most relevant objective is then used to rank the main infrastructure works in the region. The exercise developed in this study suggests that to develop an effective strategic planning of the Brazils transport system, a broader and deeper work in terms of scope and methodology must be undertaken.

This compilation dissertation consists of four essays with the common theme of welfare analysis of long-term public investments. The first two essays focus on analysis of climate change mitigation, i.e., the social cost of carbon dioxide. The third essay focuses on cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of transport investment projects, while the last essay takes a broader perspective on welfare analysis.

The thesis is about a transport Infrastructure payments in the selected transport branches of the Republic of Belarus. The first part is about a general description of the transport infrastructure of the country that connects the European countries with the Russian Federation and the Baltic States. Focus on the actual state, quality, development of the infrastructure. The second part - the description of the methods and tools of payment. In connection with a progressive development of road infrastructure and different methods of payment more attention is given to this type of communication. There are several systems of road payment in the world. The first method is based on the principle of time, such as vignettes. Another method is payment before road use (Toll). The first method is not working in Belarus, so the work described the second method. The last part of the thesis is about the payment on the certain types of transport infrastructure in Belarus. Focus on such transport types as rail and road transport, also made attention to the air and river transport.

With the recent unprecedented growth of many African economies, infrastructure investment has been flooding into the continent. Two key areas experiencing large growth in infrastructure development are the transport and energy sectors. This trend also continues to hold true in the South African development framework. The theme of this thesis encompasses both subjects of energy and transportation infrastructure which feature prominently in the countries development plans. When energy is discussed in South Africa, it is usually in the context of power generation and electricity distribution. This study focuses on another key component of the energy sector in the form of liquid fuel. Most of this energy is consumed for transportation purposes. The energy consumption of the transport sector in South Africa is large, totalling around 28% of Total Final Consumption (TFC) in the national energy balances. The bulk of this energy demand (97%) is in the form of liquid fuels, accounting for 84% of the national liquid fuel demand. This thesis focusses on the investigation of a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) model, which can be used to aid decision makers in the planning and assessment of liquid fuel transportation projects. A key feature of this thesis is the incorporation of a stochastic analysis in the MCDA model. There are two key motivations for assimilating a stochastic analysis in this investigation. The first one is the evaluation of incorporating such an analysis in an MCDA, as opposed to a more traditional sensitivity analysis. The second motivation is to assess the value of employing stochastic analysis as an input method for analysing a decision problem, where comprehensive field data can be substituted for a relevant range of simulated data. This thesis proposes a model which integrates the MCDA and stochastic analysis in the hope that it would provide a faster and more cost effective alternative for assessing certain liquid fuel transportation problems.

Transport infrastructure has a wide array of effects on ecological processes. These effects benefit certain species and might enhance or accelerate ecological processes such as colonization and dispersal, but as well extinction. The overall impact on biodiversity is however negative and several authors conclude transport infrastructure to have detrimental effects on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Planning and construction of transport infrastructure is in the EU to be preceded by an environmental assessment process, with the overall aim to prevent rather than repair potential unintended negative effects. This thesis presents two studies on transport infrastructure effects on biodiversity in the context of environmental assessment. The first study reviewed how and how sufficiently biodiversity aspects were accounted for in environmental assessment of transport infrastructure projects and plans, and identified opportunities to improve concurrent practice. The first study concluded that the treatment of biodiversity aspects has improved over the years, but that the low use of quantitative impact assessment methods, the treatment of fragmentation and spatial and temporal delimitation of the impact assessment study area remain problematic. The second study assessed the impact of the Swedish road network on biodiversity by use of existing landscape ecological metrics and GIS. The second study reconnects to the shortcomings in environmental assessment practice identified in the first study, by discussing the utility of the method in terms of applicability in environmental assessment processes. The second study identified nature types and species adversely exposed to transport infrastructure effects, and concluded that sound methodologies for biodiversity assessment can be developed using existing tools and techniques. In sum, transport infrastructure influence vast areas of the surrounding landscape, and this is not accounted for in planning and design of new transport infrastructure due to shortcomings in current environmental assessment practice. Existing tools and techniques could be used to address several of these shortcomings, and an increased use of quantitative analysis of transport infrastructure effects on biodiversity would add significantly to the quality of impact predictions and evaluations. / <p>QC 20130612</p> / GESP

Maintenance of transport infrastructure assets is widely advocated as the key in minimizing current and future costs of the transportation network. While effective maintenance decisions are often a result of engineering skills and practical knowledge, efficient decisions must also account for the net result over an asset's life-cycle. One essential aspect in the long term perspective of transport infrastructure maintenance is to proactively estimate maintenance needs. In dealing with immediate maintenance actions, support tools that can prioritize potential maintenance candidates are important to obtain an efficient maintenance strategy. This dissertation consists of five individual research papers presenting a microdata analysis approach to transport infrastructure maintenance. Microdata analysis is a multidisciplinary field in which large quantities of data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted to improve decision-making. Increased access to transport infrastructure data enables a deeper understanding of causal effects and a possibility to make predictions of future outcomes. The microdata analysis approach covers the complete process from data collection to actual decisions and is therefore well suited for the task of improving efficiency in transport infrastructure maintenance. Statistical modeling was the selected analysis method in this dissertation and provided solutions to the different problems presented in each of the five papers. In Paper I, a time-to-event model was used to estimate remaining road pavement lifetimes in Sweden. In Paper II, an extension of the model in Paper I assessed the impact of latent variables on road lifetimes; displaying the sections in a road network that are weaker due to e.g. subsoil conditions or undetected heavy traffic. The study in Paper III incorporated a probabilistic parametric distribution as a representation of road lifetimes into an equation for the marginal cost of road wear. Differentiated road wear marginal costs for heavy and light vehicles are an important information basis for decisions regarding vehicle miles traveled (VMT) taxation policies. In Paper IV, a distribution based clustering method was used to distinguish between road segments that are deteriorating and road segments that have a stationary road condition. Within railway networks, temporary speed restrictions are often imposed because of maintenance and must be addressed in order to keep punctuality. The study in Paper V evaluated the empirical effect on running time of speed restrictions on a Norwegian railway line using a generalized linear mixed model.