Suchergebnisse

The development of policies to support an agenda of urban rehabilitation as a part of a city's approach to engender sustainability is a difficult process owing to the need to consider a large number of stakeholder needs and demands. For example, Hong Kong has accumulated a considerable amount of building stock due to its rapid economic development over the last 50 years. However, despite Hong Kong's economic growth, it has overlooked the need to rehabilitate its existing building stock (i.e. to restore the condition, operation and capacity of buildings) As such, a significant proportion of Hong Kong's aging building stock is in need of rehabilitation. Further, the absence of a systemic maintenance policy, has stymied the Hong Kong's government's ability to ensure that its private building stock are resilient and adaptable for the future. Responding to the resulting need to develop urban rehabilitation policies for Hong Kong, this paper develops a system dynamics (SD) model to: (1) understand the future trend of the aged private buildings, particularly their sizes and age distribution; and (2) examine the complex relationships between allocated resources such as building professionals, number of aged private buildings and the strength of rehabilitation policies. The SD model developed can be used as a planning tool to simulate the effects of regulatory changes on aged private building stock management in consideration of available resources. The model development relies on a real-life database that can be applied to any city that faces the need to rehabilitate its ageing building stock as a part of an urban rehabilitation strategy.

After five years of extensive R&D sponsored by government and industry, the coal log pipeline (CLP) technology for transportation of coal has been sufficiently developed through laboratory tests to warrant large-scale pre-commercial demonstration and testing. Meanwhile, a national survey of electric utilities and coal companies has produced fourteen potential CLP demonstration sites. A preliminary evaluation of the sites determined that at least seven of the fourteen sites are economically promising. The purpose of this EPRI-TC proposal is to conduct a large-scale pre-commercial test/demo of CLP to pave the way for commercial demonstration. Completion of this pre-commercial test/demo project in two years will enable construction of the first commercial CLP with minimum risk involved and with maximum success. The CLP technology involves compaction of coal into logs (large circular coal cylinders), and the transportation of such logs by an underground pipeline to the user--a power generation station. It is an innovative new coal pipeline system that can effectively compete with railroads and truck transportation. The economics of CLP has been thoroughly examined in 1995. It was found that the CLP is economically competitive with train for distances greater than about 100 miles, and competitive with truck for distances greater than about 30 miles. As compared to coal slurry pipeline, the CLP has the following advantages: (1) CLP transports twice as much coal than a coal slurry pipeline of the same diameter can. The cost of coal transportation by CLP is substantially lower than by slurry pipeline. (2) Dewatering coal logs is much simpler than dewatering slurry. (3) CLP can be restarted readily after lengthy shutdown. It has no restart problem. (4) CLP uses less energy than slurry pipeline for transporting the same amount of coal. (5) Coal log fuel is most versatile. Upon crushing it can be burned in any type of combustors--pulverized-coal, cyclone, fluidized-bed, or stoker. (6) Storage of coal logs is much simpler than storage of coal slurry. (7) CLP uses only 1/3 to 1/4 of the water used by slurry pipeline. This makes CLP more feasible than slurry pipeline in regions of water shortage. Development of the CLP technology will benefit electric utilities by reducing coal transportation cost--not only through use of CLP, but also due to the competition fostered which will cause rail rates and truck rates to keep within bounds. The pre-commercial test/demo project proposed herein contains four major components or tasks: (1) construction of a 6-inch-diameter, 3,000-ft-long coal pipeline for testing coal logs under conditions similar to those of future commercial CLP; (2) construction and testing of a coal log machine that can rapidly manufacture coal logs to supply coal log pipelines; (3) conducting a site-specific application study for each participating utilities; and (4) conducting an economic analysis of future commercial CLP systems using information gained in this study, and following EPRI cost guidelines. The project is for two years at a total cost of $825,960 of which $500,000 is requested from EPRI and participating utilities. As an EPRI Tailored Collaboration project, each participating utility is asked to contribute a total of $60,000 over two years (with equal matching from EPRI) to support this project. The targeted amount from utilities and EPRI for this project is $600,000 of which $100,000 is indirect cost to be used by EPRI to administer this project. This targeted amount can be achieved with five electric utilities participating. The project will also be cost-shared with $325,960 of the existing funds of the Capsule Pipeline Research Center (CPRC). Currently, the CPRC has insufficient funds to carry out this project without support from EPRI and some additional utility companies. ; Introduction -- Advantages of CLP -- Brief review of concept and state of development -- Project purpose and tasks -- Test facilities -- Statement of work -- Schedule of activities -- References -- Qualifications of institute and project personnel -- Budget -- Budget explanation -- Utilities participation and arrangements -- Intellectual property rights and patents -- Appendices. Document on preparing smooth welded joints for steel pipe ; CPRC's contract document (agreement) with existing industrial sponsors.

This paper addresses the nebulous value for money (VfM) concept and its widely-criticised use in justifying the adoption of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for transport infrastructure projects. It draws on the theories of value and identifies that value is generated in the interaction of the supply side (i.e., governments - as project sponsors and part of infrastructure delivery partnerships) and the demand side (i.e., end-users). In this sense, 'public' participation in transport is highlighted in the proposed framework to demonstrate that it is the combination of 'traditional' and 'public' VfM that together create a more meaningful VfM concept. To underpin the application of the framework, a dynamic VfM assessment process is developed that can facilitate the appropriate selection of a procurement method and assess its VfM throughout the project lifecycle. Unlike current examples, the framework is designed for both PPPs and their alternatives (e.g., conventional public sector procurement) and aligns ex-ante and ex-post VfM assessment. The enhanced model creates an opportunity for governments to recognise public VfM in transport interventions, shift their mindset from singular to multi-dimensional evaluation, and start to actually accumulate and exploit experience from past projects. As such, the contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) drawing upon theories of value, it depicts the ontology of VfM and addresses a missing ingredient in VfM assessment; and (2) it develops a holistic framework for the public sector to re-calibrate their VfM assessment policy when procuring transport projects.

Purpose: The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has further constrained the budgets of governments worldwide for delivering their much-needed infrastructure. Consequently, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), with the private sector's investment and ingenuity, would appear to be an increasingly popular alternative. Value for money (VfM) has become the major criterion for evaluating PPPs against the traditional public sector procurement, and however is plagued with controversy. Hence, it is important that governments compare and contrast their practice with similar and disparate bodies to engender best practice. This paper, therefore, aims to understand governments' evaluation context and provide a cross-continental comparison on their VfM assessment. Design/ methodology/ approach: Faced with different domestic contexts (e.g., aging infrastructure, population growth, and competing demands on finance), various governments tend to adopt different emphases when undertaking the VfM assessment. In line with the theory of boundary spanning, a cross continental comparison is conducted between three of the most noticeable PPP markets (i.e., the United Kingdom - UK, Australia and China) about their VfM assessment. The institutional level is interpreted by a social, economic and political framework, and the methodological level is elucidated through a qualitative and quantitative VfM assessment. Findings: There are individual institutional characteristics that have shaped the way each country assesses VfM. For the methodological level, we identify that: (1) these global markets use a public sector comparator as the benchmark in VfM assessment; (2) ambiguous qualitative assessment is conducted only against PPPs to strengthen their policy development; (3) Australia's priority is in service provision whereas that of the UK and China is project finance and production; and (4) all markets are seeking an amelioration of existing controversial VfM assessments so that purported VfM relates to project lifecycles. Therefore, an option ...