Motorways economic regulation: A worldwide survey

During the last few decades, the motorways sector greatly expanded around the world. Today it represents an essential infrastructure asset of a country. In the majority of cases the network was initially built and maintained with public funds through direct state provision. In the early 1990s many developed and emerging countries moved towards private involvement in toll roads provision, increasing the need for sound economic regulation. However, no comprehensive analysis of the existing regulatory and institutional frameworks has been carried out so far. Starting from a survey involving 21 countries, the paper tries to fill in this gap through a review of existing motorway regulatory frameworks. Various aspects of regulation have been collected and analysed in order to provide an overview of the current practices, both in quantitative and qualitative terms evidencing the strengths and the weaknesses among the various models.