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The purpose of this paper is to propose a method that can calculate the transportation infrastructure network service capacity enhancement given by planned transportation infrastructure projects construction. Managers can sequence projects more rationally to maximize the construction effectiveness of infrastructure investments.

This paper designed a computational network simulation software to generate topological networks based on established rules. Based on the topological networks, the software simulated the movement path of users and calculated the average travel time. This software allows the adjustment of parameters to suit different research objectives. The average travel time is used as an evaluation index to determine the most appropriate construction sequence.

In this paper, the transportation infrastructure network of Sichuan Province in China was used to demonstrate this software. The average travel time of the existing transportation network in Sichuan Province was calculated as 211 min using this software. The high-speed railways from Leshan to Xichang and from Xichang to Yibin had the greatest influence on shortening the average travel time. This paper also measured the changes in the average travel time under two strategies: shortening the maximum and minimum priorities. All the transportation network optimisation plans for Sichuan Province will be somewhere between these two strategies.

The contribution of this research are three aspects: First, a complex network analysis method that can take into account the differences of node elements is proposed. Second, it provides an effective tool for decision makers to plan transportation infrastructure construction. Third, the construction sequence of transportation infrastructure development plan can effect the infrastructure investment effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the major management issues that impact on mega transportation infrastructure projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and identify the factors that cause unsuccessful project completions. The paper further seeks to identify the changes that can be made to improve project success.

This is a qualitative study that involved face‐to‐face interviews with 20 key experienced transportation construction stakeholders who had been involved in a number of different projects in the UAE. This was followed by a focus group discussion involving ten key stakeholders who had been involved in the construction of a mega project – the Dubai Fujairah Highway. Analysis of the interview data was conducted using NVivo.

The findings highlight the complexity involved in managing mega transportation infrastructure projects in the UAE. Multiple stakeholders (government agencies, sponsors/clients, management firms, consultants and contractors) influence the various stages of projects. The need for effective communication, coordination, knowledge sharing and decision making amongst the stakeholders, especially during the planning and design stages, is highlighted as critical.

The main limitation is the small numbers interviewed for each stakeholder group. Nevertheless, the sample of interviews provides a good representation of the transport infrastructure construction industry in the UAE.

Three major practical implications relate to: improving communication and coordination amongst government departments and key stakeholders to streamline effective knowledge sharing and decision making, leading to successful project outcomes; improving the skills and competencies of professional staff at all levels and subsequently delegating authority to lower levels; and the adoption of global international standards to improve planning, design and construction activities.

The paper describes the first study of its kind conducted in the UAE that provides valuable insights with respect to transportation infrastructure project management.

The large-scale construction of China’s transportation infrastructure has driven the flow of elements between regions, which has provided convenient conditions for the accumulation of advantageous resources.

Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China in the past 2003-2017 years, this paper applies the spatial econometric model and partial differential method and empirically analyzes the spatial spillover effect of transportation infrastructure on employment in the service industry under four spatial weighting matrices.

The results show that for every 1 per cent increase in the level of transportation infrastructure, the employment density of the service industry in the region can be increased by 0.1274 per cent. It is worth noting that roads promote the employment of the service industry more than railways and inland waterways. However, inland waterways have not shown positive effects. The results on spatial spillover of transportation infrastructure indicate that railway has obvious promotion effect on the employment level of service industry in the surrounding area, while the highway has hindered the effect. The spatial spillover effect of inland waterway is not obvious.

The value of this paper is to consider the impact of China’s transportation infrastructure on employment in a particular industry, especially in the service industry. The research will help to provide empirical evidence for policymakers. The government needs to invest and build transportation infrastructure based on the stage and development potential of the employment development of the regional service industry.

In the aftermath of hurricanes, the damage levied on transportation infrastructures increases the timeliness of emergency responses and recovery procedures, making it essential that they are reconstructed as quickly as possible – on time and within budget. The aim of this study was to determine significant performance indicators (PIs) that considerably affect cost and schedule performance as well as reworks in post–hurricane reconstruction of transportation infrastructure including highways, bridges, roadways, etc. Additionally, the determined PIs were clustered to investigate key components.

The root causes of reconstruction projects' poor performance were identified through the existing literature, and 30 transportation infrastructure case studies were analyzed to determine the significant PIs that corresponded to cost, schedule performance and reworks. The factor analysis method was used to cluster the significant PIs and determine the key components affecting them.

Eight key components were found for cost, eight for schedule performance and six for reworks. The key components of cost performance are shortage of resources, information management, coordination, safety, location, quality of materials, quality of resources and project complexity. The key components of reconstruction schedule performance are human resources, risk management, work suspension, material resources, productivity, on-site inspections, geometrical characteristics and level of reconstruction complexity. The six key components of reconstruction reworks are logistic management, pace of decision-making, accommodation for staff, environmental issues, available temporary paths and volume of debris.

The outcomes of this research will assist authorities and decision makers in identifying and evaluating the critical root causes of poor cost performance, poor schedule performance and reworks and will enable them to facilitate the timely and effective allocation of resources.

One of the best ways to assist China is through infrastructure investment. China might become more resilient to natural calamities by pouring more money into its transport network. Analyzing the relationship between China's degree of planned expansion and the country's current network of transport hubs can help with city development estimates. A wide range of factors were taken into consideration while evaluating China's dominance and the caliber of its transportation infrastructure. Using a geographical autocorrelation model and a coupling coordination model, the dynamic link between China's adaptability and the caliber of its transportation infrastructure is examined.

China's northwest is underdeveloped in comparison to the southeast, which has a high level of resilience and development of its transportation infrastructure. The relationship between the levels of resilience upheld by China's transport infrastructure is suggested to be coordinated.

The authors find a positive geographical autocorrelation between the degree of coupling coordination and the degree of agglomeration, despite the fact that the distance between cities increases with time. They now believe that there is a connection between an area's population density and the degree of interspousal cooperation within. The consequence is an improvement in both national security and economic prosperity. The facilities for disaster management and transportation in China have received several proposals for improvement.

The authors' Practical Implications suggests that scale inefficiency is a major contributor to the relatively poor efficiency of China's primary inland river ports. Different types of inland river ports may have vastly different water system efficiencies. Input and output congestion at China's important interior river ports has reached 51%, making it very clear that massive amounts of valuable port resources are being wasted.

Many variables, such as climate and human error, affect the total amount of goods that can be moved via inner river ports. Ports situated either higher up or lower down the same canal may perform better or worse, respectively, depending on the circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and verify the influence mechanism of various kinds of infrastructure investment on farmers' income in rural China. It further analyzes the effect of rural infrastructure investment on rural economic transformation.

This research is used to GMM model to verify the relationship between infrastructure investment and farmers' income; furthermore, the mediating effect model is used to verify the linear conduction mechanism, and panel threshold model is used to verify the nonlinear conduction mechanism.

The results show that: (1) Rural infrastructure investment can indirectly affect farmers' income by changing land efficiency and land use structure; (2) The impact of infrastructure investment on farmers' income is nonlinear; (3) Increasing infrastructural investment of productivity and transportation will contribute to accelerating the transformation of rural economy.

This paper expands the research on the impact of rural infrastructure investment on farmers' income; it analyzes the inner mechanism and enriches the research contents in this field; the influence of various infrastructure investment on rural economic transformation is further discussed; it provides policy suggestions and theoretical basis for accelerating the transformation of China's rural economy.

With the continuous expansion of urban scale, blindly increasing or controlling transportation infrastructure possibly creates a short board in an urban system. In this study, a macro traffic integrated system was constructed according to a city's economic size distribution and transportation infrastructure. The planning strategy of traffic, industry, space interaction and coordinated development was put forward. Through theoretical model, the evolution mechanism between transportation infrastructure and economic scale distribution was revealed. Starting from the center of the city and inter city level, China's new urbanization strategy was implemented, and a comprehensive transportation system model was built. The traffic planning in Singapore was taken as an example, and the solution to traffic problems such as congestion, traffic jam, and distance was obtained. Practice has proved that the rational and effective urban transportation infrastructure construction can effectively promote the coordinated development of economy and resources, and comprehensively enhance the level of integrated transport services.

This paper explores the impact of both government subsidies and decision makers' loss-averse behavior on the determination of transportation build-operate-transfer (BOT) concession periods based on cumulative prospect theory (CPT). The prospect value of a transportation project under traffic risk can be formulated according to the value function for gains and losses and the decision weight for gains and losses. As an extra income for investors, government subsidy is designed for highly risky aspects of BOT transportation projects: uncertain initial traffic volumes and fluctuating growth rates.

A decision-making model determining the concession period of a transportation BOT project is proposed by using the Monte-Carlo simulation method based on CPT, and the effects of risky behaviors of private investors on concession period decision making are analyzed. A subsidy method related to the internal rate-of-return (IRR) corresponding to a specific initial traffic volume and growth rate is proposed. The case of an actual BOT highway project is examined to illustrate how the method proposed can be used to determine the concession period of a transportation BOT project considering decision makers' loss-averse behavior and government subsidy. Contingency analysis is discussed to cope with possible misestimating of key factors such as initial traffic volume and cost coefficients. Sensitivity analysis is employed to investigate the impact of CPT parameters on the concession period decisions. An actual BOT case which failed to attract private capital is introduced to show the practical application. The results are then interpreted to conclude this paper.

Based on comparisons drawn between a concession period decision-making model considering the psychological behaviors of decision makers and a model not considering them, the authors conclude that the concession period based on CPT is distinctly different from that of the loss-neutral model. The concession period based on CPT is longer than the loss-neutral concession period. That is, loss-averse private investors tend to ask for long concession periods to make up for losses they will face in the future. Government subsidies serve as extra income for investors, allowing appointed profits to be secured sooner. For the benefit side of contingency variables, the normal state of initial traffic volume, average annual traffic growth rate and bias degree and the government subsidy need to be paid close attention during the project life span. For the cost side of contingency variables, the annual operating cost variable has a significant impact on the length of predicted concession period, while the large-scale cost variable has minor impact.

With an actual BOT highway project, the determination of transportation BOT concession periods based on the psychological behaviors of decision makers is analyzed in this paper. As the psychological behaviors of decision makers heavily impact the decision-making process, the authors analyze their impacts on concession period decision making. Government subsidy is specifically designed for various states of initial traffic volume and fluctuating growth rates to cope with corresponding high risks and mitigate private investors' loss-averse behaviors. Contingency analysis and sensitivity analysis are discussed as the estimated values of parameters may not be authentic in actual situations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the innovative approaches to further reduce the environmental impacts during the construction of mega transportation infrastructure, particularly for Australia.

As part of this research, the Sydney Metro was exploited as a case study. This included reviewing the elements of reducing the environmental impacts for the Sydney Metro.

This research has found that there are six elements of reducing the environmental impacts of the Australian public transport infrastructure process. Moreover, this research also found that for the Sydney Metro, first, the logistic planning and optimisation was carefully developed followed by the remaining five elements.

The originality of this research consists of carefully examining the Sydney Metro’s environmental implications including its on-going EIA and EPA compliance.