Actual development experience is continuing to evolve in United States public-private partnerships. As many as ten States have public-private partnership legislation enacted. In several of these States, projects have been proposed and, in many cases, have run into significant opposition. Other States have only recently passed the enabling legislation and no project activity has yet developed. However, two new private toll roads initiated operations the U.S. in the past six months, and other projects in some States may proceed because they have avoided some of the pitfalls that trapped earlier projects. It is clear that the above information points to the need to continue to explore additional potential avenues for making public-private partnership work. Individuals from government legislative and policy perspectives, and executives in private sector engineering, construction, and related consulting firms, are analyzing the recent experience and trying to determine what works and what does not work. Those involved in developing public private partnership legislation and policy are assessing what increases general welfare and is acceptable to the general public, while the private sector executives are assessing if profitable projects can be found, approved, and developed quickly with less risk than has been demonstrated in many recent proposals. The paper proposed for this conference will provide additional detail on the U.S. experience by reviewing specific State programs and individual projects focussing on those characteristics that were significant obstacles to implementation, offering lessons learned, delineating the most recent thinking of those who are involved in designing the public private-partnership programs and projects, and describing potential public-private partnership directions that have not been explored. (A)
Abstract