Aspects of Multi - National Transportation Investment Planning

Until recently, investments for improving transportation infrastructure have been undertaken solely on a national level. Nowadays, however, since international traffic is increasing significantly, there is a growing tendency, especially among European countries, to undertake transportation investments as a group rather than alone. Such multinational transportation investments are beneficial to all participating countries; in addition to furthering economic cooperation, they bring in many valuable economies of scale. The thesis discusses the possibility of overcoming conflicts between national goals, socioeconomic and political systems, and national institutional structures, and it suggests guidelines for forecasting international road traffic, financing and evaluating investments, allocating costs, and coordinating the timing of construction in each country. These guidelines are presented in a general scheme of recommendations. More technical aspects are discussed in the appendices. Furthermore, because the present study is only a preliminary attempt to identify and solve several crucial problems related to multinational transportation investment 3 planning, it uses as an example the case of the Trans-European North-South Motorway, a joint investment under-taken by ten European countries for improving their road infrastructure. ACKNOWVLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Professor Fred Moavenzadeh for supervising the present thesis. His interest and encouragement at various points in this work, and throughout my studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was most helpful. In addition, I wish to express my appreciation to Professor Ann Friedlaender for her interest and support. Furthermore, I am grateful to the Greek Ministry of Coordination for its financial support and educational leave without which my present studies would have been impossible. Also, I should like to thank my colleagues and superiors at the Ministry of Coordination for their encouragement. I am grateful to Neil and Marilyn Shimmield for editing the manuscript, and to Peter Baldwin for typing it in a hurry. Finally, I dedicate this thesis to my family and friends.