How quickly does the asset or improvement to the asset need to be delivered?

There are two important dimensions to speed when it comes to infrastructure: procurement and delivery. Delays in either mean that the public waits for needed improvements or added capacity, and that the expected benefits from the project are delayed, adding to the indirect costs of the project.

Pure public approaches can often be characterized as speedy procurement followed by lengthy execution. Partnership approaches with reliance on value-based selection can often be characterized as the reverse. While empirical data in this area are limited, studies from the United Kingdom and Australia suggest that PPPs rarely experience the types of significant time overruns that are all too common in public infrastructure delivery.7 Thus, when evaluating the speed of delivery, the total potential time period should include a realistic view of both procurement and construction periods for all of the options being considered.

There are several factors to take into account at the outset of a project that can substantially compress delivery time, starting with the procurement approach. Can the project be designed in-house? If the answer is no, and the public sector must look to a private contractor to do the majority of the design work, then it may be useful to link the design and build components of a project, thereby reducing the overall procurement time line. Doing so avoids the need to run sequential procurement processes for design and construction.

Another consideration in gauging the potential speed of delivery is funding/finance. In some circumstances, particularly those in which public funding is available only on a pay-as-you-go basis, partnership approaches can accelerate delivery of infrastructure improvements simply by creating the possibility of financing.