Explaining the Cost Performance and Maturity of Transportation Infrastructure in the Developed and Developing World: One Size Fits All?

Abstract

Abstract

Scholarly text analysing the financial performance of highway projects are evident in the literature, most of which have opined that highway agencies record higher levels of cost overruns compared to other clients of construction and building works. Similar assertions are made about the relatively higher levels of cost overruns recorded on highway projects executed in the developing world. A scant number of seminal works have emerged in the literature, offering theoretical narratives explaining the poor financial performance of transportation infrastructure projects. This study critically spotlights these seminal works, as to whether the explanations provided are adequate to explain the financial performance of highway project delivery in the developing world. The evaluation reveals a significant gap in the literature, in terms of the predominant exclusivity of existing theoretical narratives to the developed world, which is mostly not reflective developing countries, such as those on the African continent. Notably lacking, is a feel of the socio-cultural dynamics of the developing world and shortcomings in the technical capabilities of public highway agencies in the developing world, which may underpin the disparity in the level maturity of transportation infrastructure between the developed and the developing world, despite significantly high investment by the latter. The study outcome supports the call for more in-depth research focused on expounding theoretical narratives explaining the poor financial performance transportation Infrastructure in the developing world.