Bias in traffic forecasts lead to failing toll roads
Optimism Bias and Risk in Public Private Partnerships
The tolling technology is better than ever — but traffic forecasts are a disaster.
by James A. Bacon
Bacon’s Rebellion
November 14, 2014
Randy Salzman, a free-lance Charlottesville writer, has spent the last couple of years trying to understand how Public Private Partnerships (P3s) work in Virginia. If the private sector is supposed to be so much more efficient than government, he asks, how come so many big P3 transportation projects in Virginia and across the nation have gone bankrupt? Why do private sector companies continue investing in similar projects despite the obvious risk? And what exposure do taxpayers when deals go bad? He doesn’t have any definitive answers, but he lays out a lot of good questions in the latest issue of Style Weekly.