Planning of National Transport Infrastructure
In the Islamic Countries
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 Identify and involve stakeholders. Identify needs, issues, problems and opportunities.
Plan for the acquisition of services and resources.
 Identify current and desired future state
 Consent to the desired future trends.
 Requires being informed, having data (see sectio n data collection).
Policy context and policy objectives
See section 2.2 on political factors.
Project formulation and appraisal
On the basis of the problem analysis combined with the policy context, a proposed solution and
a set of alternatives will be developed. This set will be reviewed, amended and improved.
Technical solutions will require a package of actions that best supports implementation. The
next step is to compare the proposed solution with alternatives, in order to optimise.
In order to develop the preferred plan, the investment options need to be prioritised by
maximising synergies. In this phase it is important to assess feasibility and affordability and to
assess delivery responsibilities and financial impacts.
Criteria are financial feasibility, economic sustainability and social and regional inclusion and
access. The proposed solution and the alternatives will enter a “beauty contest”. Depending on
the need for finance and the size of the project, this contest will be regional, national or
international. Competition for finance (via overarching project appraisal frameworks) is
dominant in NTI planning.
Project appraisal takes place in one or in two phases of NTI planning. NTIs developed at a high
abstraction level often require high-level project appraisal. Individual projects require detailed
feasibility analysis before final approval and implementation (Romania, 2014).
Many countries have developed comprehensive guidelines of project assessment that describe
the major part of the decision process (see also section . They include design, including
financial and economic optimisation (benchmarking with project alternatives). They allow for
additional finance (to public means of finance) and lay the foundations for a KPI structure to be
used during ex-post evaluation. These approaches have been developed and used during the
reconstruction efforts that followed the Second World War. The methods are also used to
allocate international donor funding and project monitoring.
In many countries the procedure and or the method of appraisal has a legal basis. In many
countries approved plans will enter the national transport infrastructure program or national
transport master plan. Often this equals the reservation of or a claim on the financial budget.
There are three groups of methods of project appraisal: Cost Benefit Assessment (CBA), Multi
Criteria Analysis (MCA) and Economic Impact Assessment (EIA). CBA is a more technocratic
instrument, in which researchers play a larger role, while MCA leaves more space for political
preferences. EIA is simpler than CBA, makes use of primary data and can be done with an
existing Input-Output model. CBA requires a sophisticated set of information and project
definitions. MCA is a technique that does not require monetisation of the effects, in contrast to