The forthcoming New York State legislation about implementation of public private partnership (P3) projects requires a more in-depth analysis of the appropriate framework to evaluate P3 projects and the P3 practices most suitable for the state. Private participation can help improve the resiliency and sustainability of infrastructure. However, P3s raise a set of new and important challenges for public sector sponsors, who must ensure that private participation will protect the public interest. To address this concern, the project will create a new framework to help major P3 project(s) stakeholders estimate the social welfare change of implementing P3s. The impact of a P3 project on overall social welfare provides a more comprehensive evaluation criterion than the widely-used used value for money analysis. The major goal of the project is to provide a detailed policy guideline for the design of New York State legislation that will fit the state’s potential and will outline the best practices for the state’s use of P3s. The integrated examination of P3 agreement types proposed by this project is critically important when considering both the fiscal pressure faced by municipalities and the need to fundamentally alter current transportation patterns to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to address regional natural disaster risks.

Project outputs include: (i) a framework for evaluating P3 projects, appropriate criteria for appraising these projects, and relevant targets and measures of sustainability; (ii) a set of appropriate P3 projects and models informing New York State’s public authorities about kinds of roads, business models, and ownership structures, if any, that are most appropriate for private participation; and (iii) policy guidelines about the best P3 practices for the state. A key research deliverable will be a method for determining infrastructure projects that are both socially beneficial and those that are feasible and profitable for procurement through a P3. Although the P3 approach is not new to transportation project provision, the proposed comprehensive modeling is unprecedented.