New Approach for the Assessment of High-Speed Rail Projects and How to Contain Cost Overruns: Lessons from the EVA-TREN Project

Abstract

Cost overruns occur in the majority of transport infrastructure projects in the European Union. An average project is 15–20% over budget, and one in four is above that. Deviations in cost, duration, and environmental impact are especially problematic because such investments add up to billions of Euros and have significant impacts. Based on a recent evaluation of investment for transport and energy networks project in Europe (EVA-TREN) and critical review of the state of the art, this contribution investigates the causes of deviation between project appraisals and real outcomes. Projects with partial or narrow-framed assessments are found to be more likely to face changes in design and technical and/or in environmental specifications and, therefore, delays in implementation. This, in turn, leads to significant cost overruns. The analysis indicates that effective and efficient implementation requires a level of project maturity that essentially hinges on the robustness of the scientific expertise that underlies project appraisal and on the thoroughness of stakeholders’ involvement in the decision process. On this basis, the paper proposes a new framework for organizing transport infrastructure assessments and for monitoring the implementation process.