Abstract
In keeping with our efforts to highlight topics affecting infrastructure and public works in the United States as well as globally, this issue of Public Works Management & Policy presents four articles that are both timely and extremely relevant.
In “Fault-y Reasoning: Navigating the Liability Terrain in Intelligent Transportation Systems,” Lederman, Garrett, and Taylor discuss a potential issue more and more in the public eye, namely, the liability questions raised by vehicles that operate with little or no driver intervention. Although these vehicles hold great promise for improving personal and commercial travel, at the same time, they create a host of new and largely untested liability questions for when things go wrong as they inevitably will. The authors conclude that ITS liability standards are likely to be settled incrementally in the near term on decidedly narrow grounds via case law on navigation and collision-avoidance systems, long before fully automated vehicles are deployed.
The need to renew U.S. infrastructure is at the forefront of national debate, and the construction industry will play a crucial role in this task. However, developing reliable forecasts of skilled labor demand to meet this challenge requires the collection of accurate and consistent data on which to base projections. Rasdorf, Hummer, and Vereen address a void in construction industry data in “Data Collection Opportunities and Challenges for Skilled Construction Labor Demand Forecast Modeling.” The article assesses the availability and quality of existing data and offers recommendations on how it can be improved. Better projections will help to ensure that the industry can supply an adequate and well-trained workforce to meet national construction needs.
The world’s urban population is expected to grow to more than 6 billion by 2045 with most of that growth occurring in the developing world. This growth of the urban population will also result in greatly increased volumes of solid waste. In “Solid Waste Management in Asia-Pacific: What Explains Its Coverage?” Kala Seetharam Sridhar presents research conducted on solid waste management practices in the Asia-Pacific region using cross-national data. Not surprisingly, higher levels of income were found to be well-correlated with public awareness, institutional structure, and the fiscal capacity to deliver better levels of public services. As a result, building more awareness of the environmental and health consequences of poor solid waste management should be encouraged. However, adequate financing will be a major challenge in meeting the demands for improved solid waste management over the next decade.
An adequate supply of clean drinking water is nothing less than a basic human right. However, despite this, hundreds of millions worldwide still lack access to clean water. One reason for this is a lack of public financing to improve water supplies and distribution networks. To fill this void, many government bodies have turned to the private sector to provide both technical and financial assistance. In “Public-Private Partnerships and Contract Choice in India’s Water and Wastewater Sectors,” Vedachalam, Geddes, and Riha report that public provision of water and wastewater services in urban India has been a noteworthy failure resulting in broader use of public–private partnerships (PPPs) among other reforms. Their research focused on the determinants of a city’s decision to invite varying amounts of private participation though a PPP agreement and suggests that cities with larger populations, better PPP regulatory environments, regional party rule, and lower sanitation scores are associated with higher levels of private participation through PPPs. The findings highlight the role of cities’ socioeconomic indicators in determining the type of PPP contract undertaken.