Search

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd The most significant current technological trend is digitization, the impacts of which will be faced by all levels of society. This paper addresses how the Australian construction industry has kept up with the pace of digitization compared with other industries in Australia. The data is drawn mainly from the national accounts hosted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, within the time period of 1995–2015. Construction has developed into one of the most important industries in Australia. Together with mining and the financial and insurance sector, it has contributed to a significant gross added value (GVA) in the economy. The construction industry has invested around 1% or less in information and communication technologies (ICT) as their share of GVA; however, it has invested about 15% in ICT of their total investments (gross fixed capital formation). Among the selected industries, construction's labour productivity measured by GVA per hour was the third highest, despite low level of investments in digitization. The observed correlation between ICT investments and productivity is weak when using industry level data from the national accounts. Any big leap towards digitization is not recognised for the construction industry; rather there appears to be steady acceptance of the technology.

The purpose of winter road maintenance is to reduce the negative effect of snow and ice on traffic. The current literature on winter maintenance practices is split into two segments: means of forecasting weather in order to plan proper winter maintenance, and optimization of maintenance operations. There is relatively little literature on the opportunities that real-time information, e.g., from maintenance vehicles, would offer for combining these two segments and taking the applied research and practice one step further. It seems, however, that the lack of operational solutions has so far limited empirical research in favour of analysing prospects that the ubiquitous technologies could offer for winter maintenance. Recent field tests show that the technical obstacles to obtaining real-time information from maintenance vehicles can be overcome. Thus it is possible to enhance the benefits of winter road maintenance operations considerably through new designs and architectures. Improving the efficiency of vehicle fleets by using real-time information is one of the first realizable steps. Based on the analysis of current winter road maintenance ecosystems in several countries, this paper suggests how to make effective use of the transparency that real-time information exchange between different actors can offer. Transparent real-time information enables re-engineering of the entire winter maintenance ecosystem and assists road authorities in setting more precise, and at the same time more diverse, objectives for winter maintenance. This also involves real-time monitoring of service providers' performance and realization of these objectives.

© 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.In Europe, the public sector allocates a significant amount of resources to entrepreneurship support through subsidies and public advisory services. Typically, public entrepreneurship support is provided without any expectation of direct returns. However, there is a lack of information about the efficiency and effectiveness of these actions. Entrepreneurs in northern sparsely populated areas face context-specific challenges as they operate in the market. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of local action group funding to microenterprises in a northern sparsely populated area. This is a retrospective, single-case study focusing on a sparsely populated area in Northern Finland. The study is based on 25 semi-structured enterprise interviews. Multiple perspectives are analysed in the interviews. This study investigates what the influence was of public local rural financial support from microenterprise entrepreneurs' perspectives. As a result of this case study, the role of public business advisory services for the entrepreneurs in local rural funding process is also clarified. Results can contribute to the effectiveness of public business subsidies, improving the processes to correspond more effectively to case-specific needs of microenterprises.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to probe experiences of entrepreneurs in the social and health care service provision. Design/methodology/approach – Information was collected regarding entrepreneurs’ views on the factors affecting the collaboration between public and private sectors. A sample of social and health care entrepreneurs was interviewed using open-ended questions. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using inductive content analysis. Findings – Three main categories of factors affecting the success of partnership were identified: the nature of partnership, business aspects and tension builders. Research limitations/implications – The research was undertaken in rural Finland and the sample consisted 13 entrepreneurs. The results must be considered as observations with more generalised conclusions. Practical implications – The results of this study support municipalities in their social and health care service strategy work and especially in consideration of how to also facilitate a fruitful public-private partnership (PPP)-framework, which will largely depend on mutual understanding and consensus. Originality/value – The reform of the social and health care system has raised intensive public debate throughout Europe. Key issues include the reorganising of social and health care processes as well as PPPs in provision of services. This study observes the views and experiences of private entrepreneurs and points out where some potential problems and solutions of social and health care PPPs are.

To respond to the dynamics of urban surroundings, enhancing innovativeness in the urban environment has become increasingly important. The major challenge with innovations in urban environment is that many of them do not diffuse easily. The paper identifies the challenges related to urban innovation processes and their scaling-up, using the renewable energy solution pilot project as an example case. This is done by discussing the position and maturity of Renewable Energy Solutions in City Areas (RESCA) in an innovation typology context, and by assessing performed actions aimed at boosting the innovativeness in the case project. Results emphasized the essential role of the local building administration as a proactive stakeholder who started open-mindedly to address old-fashioned, inefficient and dominant practices of the construction industry. Another innovation hot-spot was that market actors needed to collaborate, take steps and present their ideas in order to find, implement and pilot the emerging solutions and innovations.

Whereas transport safety research has long and established traditions, the pivotal public task of integrally governing, managing and overseeing transport safety in an effective and socio-economically cost efficient manner is yet a largely uncharted area within science. Therefore, it should not be taken for granted that all public resources are allocated where they add value the most. This is due in part to historical reasons and the inertia within how governments respond to changes around them. This article investigates the performance management system of a national transportation safety agency with qualitative methods. First, it introduces the evolution history and the surrounding institutional architecture of the agency. Next, the goal-setting, steering and management control mechanisms are described, followed by a cross-check of mandated tasks and objectives and the associated performance indicators. The main finding is that significant gaps between stated policy objectives, operational annual performance targets and available indicators can be identified. Especially with regard to societal objectives, the steering framework turns out to provide less than comprehensive coverage. Performance indicators for some major objectives are missing and vice versa, some measurement metrics do not seem to link clearly to set objectives. Not all the set objectives need (or even could) necessarily be measured, but certain shortcomings in the performance control system may prove critical. The findings imply that there is a risk of sub-optimal use of public resources if the targets and indicators of agencies are not thoroughly considered so that they logically cover agencies' mandates. The implications of the discovered gaps are outlined, together with recommendations for a more balanced approach. The analysis concludes with some recommended steps in order to cover the blind spots. With the aid of these steps, performance management systems can be improved to better meet policy

Although the concept of public-private partnership has been adopted in most countries in the world, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways PPP has been implemented and how the national political, legislative and administrative context affect the success of public-private partnerships. This paper compares the PPP experience of the three post-communist countries - the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland - with that of Finland. It shows that although PPP was equally alien to the countries' political and administrative systems, Finland has managed to implement PPPs without any serious problems while in the three transitive countries the same process produced numerous major failures and controversies. Several factors behind this contrast are identified including political and institutional stability, different nature of regulatory frameworks and established managerial practices. In the end, important lessons are drawn from the cases for both the most developed and transitive countries implementing PPPs.

In developed countries, the public sector allocates substantial resources to support entrepreneurship. Current literature provides limited evidence on how public advisory services should be efficiently and effectively organised. This study investigated what the perceived significance and service level of public advisory services is. A single case study focusing on a sparsely populated region in Northern Finland was performed by carrying out orientation interviews and a customer survey. As a result of this study, the levels of successfulness and the importance of the public advisory services were clarified from the customers' perspective. The results imply that the services are particularly important in the very beginning of the development of the business. It is also then when the most tailoring is called for. This research includes a novel sample, reflecting experiences particularly from a northern sparsely populated area. The perceived customer value of the services is a significant new viewpoint.

This paper discusses and analyses public-private partnership (PPP) options within the framework of different ownership and governance (O&G) models of technical infrastructures. The O&G models in Finland are described and the market layers of ownership, operation, and services are studied. All infrastructure sectors have somewhat different O&G structures and they each have a different market context, not least because of ownership and the market structures that are "on" the infrastructure. Private companies, public companies, state and municipality owned enterprises and purely public-authority-type models can be found. Interestingly, the models seem not to affect too much the cash-based returns to the owners. However, the market structures will probably provide varying prospects for PPPs to be carried out, whether the PPPs are means of procuring projects or outsourcing of formerly public functions. The financial return capacity of the infrastructure is playing a key role. Some infrastructures have already a tradition of "good business" while others are considered as public goods on more or less sustainable grounds. The results imply that for some infrastructures there could be more natural markets for PPPs. The paper gives a topology for different market layers which can be identified for infrastructures and related services and businesses.

This paper introduces a generic resilience framework that is applied to transport systems. The framework is based on prior research and literature on resilience. The paper first reviews the relevant literature and builds a resilience model that distinguishes the attributes and sub-attributes of resilience. The resilience model and transport system components are then merged into a single-system resilience matrix. The complexity of resilience of a meta-system – a system comprising several sub-systems – is discussed in brief and a simplified example of how to apply meta-level resilience analysis on transport systems is shown. Finally, the implications for other systems, particularly those governed by cities and municipalities, are discussed. In fact, cities and municipalities face even more complex resilience analysis tasks than those faced by State authorities, who mostly govern sector systems (e.g. transport) within their mandate. It is argued that municipal decision-makers encounter serious challenges and questions when they consider the enhancement of their communities’ resilience.

This paper proposes a generic resilience framework that is applied to transport infrastructure systems. The framework is based on prior research and literature material on resilience. The paper first reviews some of the relevant literature and builds a resilience model that distinguishes the attributes and sub-attributes of resilience. Then the resilience model and transport system components are merged into single system resilience matrix. The complexity of resilience of a meta-system – a system comprising several sub-systems – is underlined. Finally, the implications on other meta-systems, for example those governed by cities and municipalities, are briefly discussed. In fact, cities and municipalities face even a more complex resilience analysis tasks than do the state authorities who mostly govern sector systems (e.g. transport) within their mandate.

The European 7th Framework Programme project Extreme Weather impacts on European Networks of Transport devised a holistic analysis of extreme weather risks for the transport system. The analysis provided an overview of extreme weather risks, or a risk panorama. The risk panorama was built on a probabilistic approach to extreme weather phenomena occurrences and on vulnerability analysis based on selected macro-level economic and transport system indicators of the member states of EU-27. The panorama covers all transport modes and views infrastructure-related risks, time delay risks, and accidents risks. In addition to climatic circumstances, the devised risk indicator is also dependent on regional circumstances, such as population and transport density and income level. This paper describes the construct and application of an extreme weather risk indicator (EWRI). EWRIs are counted for each country and each transport mode separately. Furthermore, this paper also presents the most significant extreme weather events in different parts of Europe and on the transport modes they affect the most.

Until recently, research on potential economic impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on transport infrastructure was scarce, but currently this area is rapidly expanding. Indeed, there is a growing international interest, including the European area, regarding the impacts of extreme weather and climate change on the management of various transportation modes. This paper reviews briefly the present status regarding the knowledge of financial aspects of extreme weather impacts on transportation, using recent research findings from Europe, and proposes some new views in cost-benefit analysis, project appraisal and asset value protection for the management of transport systems under extreme weather risks. Quite often, risk management is understood as a response to truly extreme impacts, but this constitutes a misunderstanding. Some values are more extreme than others, and in the context of extreme weather, some weather phenomena are more extreme in their intensity and resulting impacts. An analysis of the level of costs and risks to societies, as a result of extreme weather, reveals that the risks in different European Union member states deviate substantially from each other. Also, the preparedness of different societies to deal with extreme weather events is quite variable. Extreme weather and climate change costs and risks represent a new type of item, which has to be dealt with in project appraisal. Although a fully established procedure does not exist, some fundamental ideas of cost-benefit analysis under extreme weather scenarios are presented in this paper, considering accident costs, time costs and infrastructure-related costs (comprising physical damages to infrastructures and increased maintenance costs). Cost-benefit analysis is usually associated with capital investments, but the original idea of cost-benefit analysis is not restricted to investment appraisal. Therefore, activities such as enhanced maintenance, minor upgrades, adoption of new

Three major projects initiated by the European Commission within its 7th Framework Programme that have studied the weather phenomena and their projections to the future in relation to their impacts and implications to the European transport systems have recently been concluded. All of the transport modes were covered, as well as all of the critical phenomena present within the European area. The three projects (that ran from 2009 and 2012) are as follows: (1) EWENT (Extreme Weather impacts on European Networks of Transport-www.ewent.vtt.fi); (2) ECCONET (Effects of climate change on the inland waterway networks-www.ecconet.eu); (3) WEATHER (Weather Extremes: Assessment of Impacts on Transport and Hazards for European Regions-www.weather-project.eu). In this Foreward to the Special Issue on "Vulnerability of Transportation to Extreme Weather and Climate Change," the key results of the above three projects are addressed concisely, offering the reader a broader view of their findings; since some of these are enveloped in the research papers hosted in this volume, they will not be covered in detail. However, the rich output of these projects in the form of "Project Deliverables" and "Reports" is also an important source of information on the findings and results from these three projects which are publicly available on the projects' Web sites. The purpose of this Foreward is to bring to the attention of the interested reader these sources and overview briefly some of the projects' outcomes. Also, a short comparative discussion on selected findings is made, outlining agreements and disagreements between the projects.

The aim of this research was to evaluate the new procurement practices of information and communication technology (ICT) services in Finnish-speaking schools in the City of Kauniainen. In the new model, schools define their needs and school administration mandates the procurement through tendering. The research included a review of the problems associated with procurement practices and the assessment of the procurement model. The results show that service levels have been improved and unit costs as well as the environmental load have been reduced. The new model requires the schools to have the skills and expertise to define their needs and the competencies to prepare and execute the procurement process. The case analysis of the Finnish 'Dream School in Kauniainen shows that administrative and governance aspects are equally important in successful deployment of technology. © 2013 by PrAcademics Press.

This paper introduces a holistic view to intelligent transport systems (ITS) by providing four different perspectives: the technological, economic, system performance and market views. These perspectives are essential for a thorough understanding of ITS systems, which extend beyond traditional transportation engineering. ITS require management tools related to systems engineering (i.e. architectures); unique features are related to transport economics, and they differ from traditional transport engineering solutions. ITS technologies can improve transport system performance in numerous ways; furthermore, ITS is an important business segment for many technology companies and an industry by its own right. Different types of expertise and management are required for this meta-system, which is comparable to the entire transport system in terms of organisational objectives.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the returns to the investors and the state in private finance of road infrastructure. It uses an empirical case of the E4 Helsinki-Lahti road, which was built in 1995-1999 in Finland as the first real PPP-project. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis adopts an approach based on cash flow modelling of the project and the analyses show how the cash flows are formed and divided between the various stakeholders. The pure cash flow based approach to compare the economics of PPP vs traditional procurement of road infrastructure projects produced results that pose challenges to the logic, and pros and cons of shadow toll PPPs. Findings: The analysis shows that potential win-win situations are hard to find in shadow toll arrangements. This is largely due to the different discount rates used by investors and state. It is argued that the state does not include all the true costs in its appraisal of projects. Private investors, in principle and as a rule, price all of the relevant risks and uncertainties of which they are cognisant. Originality/value: The paper presents an analytical cash flow model that can be applied a wider range of PPP projects than simply to shadow toll roads. The paper contributes to the discussion on the viability of PPPs in different contexts.

This paper describes a novel risk indicator for extreme weather risks for use in transportation systems. The risk indicator is applied to the European transportation system indicating and ranking the risks for the 27 member states of the European Union (EU-27). The paper starts with definitions of hazards, vulnerability, and risk, based on relevant literature, and then operationalizes the risk, hazard, and vulnerability with the help of EU-27 data. Finally, the paper discusses the extreme weather risk indicator (EWRI) and evaluates its applicability and limitations. The risk indicator is a relative indicator: it should be viewed and treated as a ranking system. The devised indicator is able to assist decision makers at national and state as well as international and federal levels in the prioritization of extreme weather risks within their jurisdiction. The overall approach of EWRI is based on mainstream risk and vulnerability assessment research, following for the most part the existing conceptual models. The novelty of EWRI lies in its application area (transportation) and wide use of both empirical and statistical data. EWRI was used to assess the hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks of extreme weather for the EU-27, but nothing hinders its application, either in this form or a modified form, in other contexts.

While the global economy has suffered in the recent years and projections for the future are highly uncertain, Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS) is one of the sectors where growth potential is still envisaged and has shown to be growing in steeper curves than other industry sectors. Evaluating the roles and shares of different stakeholders is challenging due to the involvement of several public and private actors, which complicates the business model value network. The roles in value networks change with the emergence of new business models and technology. With concepts such as open data, open source, and cloud computing, the changes can be dramatic. This paper examines existing business models and, based on those, presents both traditional and modern versions of a generalised business model framework.

The purpose of this paper is to review the most recent and relevant business intelligence and market foresight analyses on electric vehicles in order to build a picture on the current market activities and offerings. The reference material was clustered in three main sources: 1) market foresight analyses 2) information services development activities, 3) probe of electric vehicle test sites. The future EV market is seen to have a promising growth potential, though the proper business models that could meet consumer aspirations are still called for. The growing potential of EV market has been stimulating the development of several types of services that support EV deployment, e.g. information services. The test sites are already emerging around the globe and the master driver seems to be the automotive industry. © IJTech 2012.

ITS products and services has been developed, and its myriad benefits has been introduced which are promising for new business opportunities and investors. Its economic importance has also been recognised as well and many analyst reports show significant growth projections for the ITS market as a whole. This paper attempts to make the first quantitative and empirical analysis of the ITS industry in Finland. The Finnish ITS market had a significant growth in 2007 but has since then been very slowly been turning upwards from the negative growth observed in 2008 and 2009. The fast growing firms have clearly been doing well whereas the weakest performers seem to have a continuous declining trend. The Finnish ITS supply market of approximately € 300 million had around 1700 employees in 2010.

Weather service systems that collect, refine and distribute information to road users and to network and maintenance operators can generate significant benefits to stakeholders and society. For maintenance operators improved efficiency through timely reactions, smaller amounts of de-icing materials and better personnel utilization offer clear potential for reduced costs. In the future, better weather models will result in more accurate longer-term forecasts thus increasing the potential for benefits. New technology enables new kinds of services (e.g. decision support systems). This paper provides a structured view of the impacts of weather information services to different stakeholders.

This paper describes a typology of components present in intelligent transport systems (ITS), or a physical architecture components of ITS and points out what type of weather phenomena are particularly harmful for ITS. The EWENT project's second work package studied what are the frequencies of extreme weather in different parts of Europe and how these frequencies are about to change. The means of six different regional climate models are presented. When looking at climate model projections the overall pattern in Europe is clear: the climate is getting warmer with more heat waves and fewer winter phenomena. Precipitation seems to turn from snow to water ever more often, but the change is of course still very uncertain. Warming causes increased risks of thunder storms which are associated with increased probability of heat waves. If heat waves increase significantly, as seems to be the case especially in Mediterranean, also sand storms may become more frequent and severe since heat waves could loosen the soil. All air-lifted sub-systems and outdoor equipment, such as path-side systems, are in principle at risk. The more intelligence and control can be shifted to in-vehicle systems, the lighter will the public sector cost burden probably be, thinking of the mitigation costs. © 2011 by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.

This paper discusses mobility pricing concepts from viewpoint of ecological targets and sustainable development. The current Finnish mobility pricing system is used as a starting point, and then proceeding along the lines of discussion towards its strengths and weaknesses with regard to environmental policy agenda. Since the Finnish practice has a long tradition of internalizing the external costs of ecological and environmental costs, it serves as a good spring board towards eco-pricing. If eco-pricing would be adopted, there would be necessary economic trade-offs. Hence, the question turns into political and social one: how much are we willing to pay for ecological mobility The technological issues are considered in the end, as eco-pricing will require the employment of different technologies. However, the technological challenges are probably easier to tackle than the political, social and institutional ones. Finally, some aspects of advanced vs. developing economies are discussed. © IJTech 2011.

ITS services need to be developed and there is potential for new business opportunities and investors, but the value of information must be assessed properly. This paper presents a framework of attributes that contribute to information value; the list is derived from the literature on information value and valuation. The attributes are discussed from the viewpoint of stakeholders in the service supply chain. A value asymmetry proposition is formulated and strategies to mitigate the asymmetry problem are discussed, introducing three basic strategies to tackle the problem.

The damages and social costs from weather-related accidents of road transport are significant. Adverse weather conditions such as fog and slipperiness contribute to a significant number of accidents every year. Weather and road weather information services can help to mitigate these harms. In Finland, for example, the socio-economic benefits of current road weather information services for road transport are at least 120 million euro annually in reduced accident and maintenance costs. The benefits come mainly from two sources: traffic information/warning services and winter road maintenance operations. The benefits could be at least doubled by developing more efficient and intelligent information services. Recent technological advances and a predicted increase in extreme weather phenomena are further highlighting the importance of these services. This paper summarises the benefits of weather information services for road transport by reviewing studies conducted in some European countries between the years 2007 and 2010. The value network of weather services is looked at with regard to the different actors and their roles. Potential benefits are also evaluated from the points-of-view of the different actors. Two different aspects of achieved benefits are identified: road network operation and road maintenance. © 2011 by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.

The aim of this research was to evaluate modern ICT procurement practices and ICT deployment in Finnish-speaking schools in the Municipality of Kauniainen. The main idea was to procure ICT services rather than hardware. The school administration defines the needs of schools and procures the services through competitive tendering. The first phase of the research was to review the previous problems associated with the old practices. The second phase was to assess how the new practice has affected the service level, costs and environmental aspects of ICT in schools. The results show that the procurement of services rather than hardware has proved to be the right decision: service levels have been improved, costs have been reduced by about 40% and, due to a longer life cycle for workstations and reduced electricity consumption, the environmental load has been cut by about 50%. The model adopted in Kauniainen requires the schools and school administration to have the skills and expertise to define their needs and the competencies to prepare and execute the procurement process. The most important prerequisite seems to be political will at local level to grant the school administration the freedom to choose the right kind of ICT service system to fit its needs.

This research report investigates and analyzes the pros and cons of different ownership and governance models of infrastructure networks. The report covers most infrastructure networks: transportation networks (roads, streets, railways, airports, harbors) and utility networks (water and sewage, energy and electricity). There is no unifying solution that would fit all sectors in terms of the most efficient ownership model. However, in many sectors reforms are needed towards more elaborated client-supplier frameworks to ensure greater efficiency and cost transparency. Surprisingly, traditional organizational structures do not seem to impact on financial returns of those networks that provide user-financed services. In Finland technical infrastructure networks are typically owned, administered and managed by the public sector as they are considered public goods and critical assets for the wellbeing of citizens. In many ways the sectors have remained passive and with little interaction towards more innovative service provision solutions or organizational models. In terms of developing the networks’ services and their profitability, the greatest business opportunity would result from allowing open entry to market and competition in contracting. This would mean abandonment of negotiated contracts and proactive evolution of functional markets. The scope of business opportunities will increase in all aspect of service delivery; from management to engineering and economic studies, asset management systems, construction and maintenance works, and the labor to do all that.