DESIGNING PRIVATE FUNDING PROGRAMS FOR PUBLIC HIGHWAYS

Over the last 20 years, municipalities have experienced serious erosio n in their ability to fund highway improvements using conventional fun ding sources, and are turning to private sources. Local officials have often sought guidance in the design of such programs from a growing b ody of literature describing experience in such efforts around the nat ion. However, it can be difficult to select those elements of others' experiences that are relevant to the current situation. A decision str ucture is proposed to aid local officials in designing their programs. An extensive literature search and analysis of case studies were used to illuminate the underlying structure of existing programs. The resu lts were generalized to obtain a detailed structure describing the bas ic attributes of all types of funding programs, a set of external fact ors that governments must consider when designing the programs, and an examination of the relationship between the external factors and the choice of program elements.