Implementation of safety based incentives in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs): an empirical analysis for the case of Spain

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are mostly implemented to circumvent budgetary constraints, and to encourage efficiency and quality in the provision of public infrastructure in order to reach social welfare. One of the ways of reaching the latter objective is by the introduction of performance based standards tied to bonuses and penalties to reward or punish the performance of the contractor. This paper focuses on the implementation of safety based incentives in PPPs in such a way that the better the safety outcome the greater larger will be the economic reward to the contractor. The main aim of this paper is to identify whether the incentives to improve road safety in PPPs are ultimately effective in improving safety ratios in Spain. To that end, Poisson and negative binomial regression models have been applied using information of motorways of the Spanish network of 2006. The findings indicate that even though road safety is highly influenced by variables that are not much controllable by the contractor such as the Average Annual Daily Traffic and the percentage of heavy vehicles, the implementation of safety incentives in PPPs has a positive influence in the reduction of fatalities, injuries and accidents.

Social involvement for community development in rural areas of Cuenca, Spain

Community development must be accompanied by a social involvement process which creates functional groups of citizens capable of taking responsibility for their own development. It is important that this process promotes the structuring of all population groups and provides the appropriate institutional and technical support. The present paper addresses these issues based on over 25 years of experience by the Association Instituto de Desarrollo Comunitario de Cuenca in revitalizing rural areas of the Spanish province of Cuenca. This paper analyses the social involvement process encouraged by this association, the relationships between public institutions and local associations, the role of these associations and the difficulties encountered in the rural areas. The long-term perspective of this experience provides some keys which can be used to successfully support the process of social involvement ―such as information on its characteristics and methodological tools―, establish local associations and create sustainable partnerships that foster the growth of leadership within the community development process.

Effectiveness of safety-based incentives in Public Private Partnerships: Evidence from the case of Spain

Many countries around the world are implementing Public?Private?Partnership (PPP) contacts to manage road infrastructure. In some of these contracts the public sector introduces economic incentives to the private operator to foster the accomplishment of social goals. One of the incentives that have been introduced in some PPP contracts is related to safety in such a way that the better the safety outcome the greater will be the economic reward to the contractor. The aim of this paper is at identify whether the incentives to improve road safety in highway PPPs are ultimately effective in improving safety ratios. To this end Poisson and negative binomial regression models have been applied using information from highway sections in Spain. The findings indicate that even though road safety is highly influenced by variables that are not much controllable by the contractor such as the Average Annual Daily Traffic and the percentage of heavy vehicles, the implementation of safety incentives in PPPs has a positive influence in the reduction of fatalities, injuries and accidents.