International benchmark and best practices on national infrastructure plans. Application to Spanish strategic planning

Abstract

[EN] The need for planning regarding investment in infrastructures is recognised and supported by most governments around the world. Planning helps to take effective and correct decisions, provides a basis for monitoring its impacts and also facilitates further developments. However it requires a high level of organization, coordination among stakeholders and anticipation of transport needs. There are some different methodological approaches for strategic planning. This paper examines the importance of infrastructure planning and how it is undertaken in different countries from Europe and other continents. It is based on a benchmarking about planning procedures of 7 reference countries (UK, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Japan and USA), in addition to others whose strategic plans are being developed at the present moment such as Croatia or Romania. This benchmarking aims to extract and compare best practices carried out in this field and to define the optimal formulation of strategic planning. In this regard, the benchmarking is focused on some key aspects: firstly, on the plan structure and its main contents. There are a lot of differences about how each country defines the future needs for transport and how it establishes the objectives and the strategies to be followed. Secondly, on the characterisation of the authorities which are responsible of the plan development (level of dependence from the government, know-how…) along with the time frame and final validity of the plans. And finally, the level of detail of the proposed actions and budgetary commitments provided by the strategic plans. Throughout the comparative analysis, the knowledge generated by this benchmarking has allowed setting a series of specific recommendations in strategic planning which can be applied as innovative solutions and best practices in future planning processes in Spain.