Benchmarking Road Sector Infrastructure for Policy Guidance. Poland as a Case Study (2020)

 ©Antti Talvitie, Magda Nieweglowska, Radek Czapski 2020

Benchmarking Road Sector Infrastructure for Policy Guidance

Poland as a Case Study

Antti Talvitie,
Professor (em) Aalto University, PO Box 14100, FI-00076 AALTO, Finland
(aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Magda Nieweglowska
Transport Analysis Specialist, Solidarity Transport Hub;
Transport & ICT Consultant, World Bank 

Radek Czapski
Program Manager - World Bank, Global Road Safety Facility;
Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank 

ABSTRACT

The paper demonstrates a use of comprehensive road sector benchmarking to examine important issues in road management and policymaking. Poland as the focus, with Finland, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain, and Sweden as the benchmark countries, of whom only three -- Finland, Germany, Romania -- were fully usable.  The benchmarking data were developed for 4 years over 2010-2014; 2013 data are used as representative. All data were checked for accuracy and consistency. 

The paper’s first five pages discuss road and traffic data issues, whose similar definitions and validity is the basis for analyses, especially in cross-country comparisons and fact-based road management. 

The data are organized in three parts: (i) descriptive country statistics: (ii) road network classification, road usage, the externalities, and road condition; and (iii) road user charges, sources of funds, and application of funds for construction and development, recurrent, and current maintenance.  

The approach in the paper is different of other benchmarking studies, which focus on projects and their costs or benchmarking at different levels – system, network, externalities, project -- but frequently ignore network classification, geography and geology, interrelationships between the levels, and the institutional practices on how road organizations procure projects and allocate their budgets. 

Poland and the benchmark countries have evolved in the past 7 years.  In that sense the paper is anachronistic, but the paper’s approach and method are not.  Using comprehensive data from multiple sources, the paper’s way of reasoning contributes and clarifies policy deliberations. 

FULL PAPER, Pdf, 966 KB, 30 pages.