Cesar Queiroz
Mr. Cesar Queiroz, former World Bank Highways Advisor, was invited by the SWUTC to visit students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin’s transportation engineering department on October 12 and give a presentation titled: “Technical and Financial Factors for Successful Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership Projects.” He spoke of the dire state of transportation funding around the world, and how successful utilization of public-private partnerships (PPP’s) can lessen the impact of funding shortfalls. One major criticism of PPP’s is that they will often take the form of toll roads, which are seen to be undesirable to many road users. But, Queiroz used an anecdote from his time at the World Bank to demonstrate user’s willingness to pay for use of transportation facilities. One day, while riding down a one-lane dirt road in rural Ghana, he passed a man working alone to fix potholes on the road. Intrigued, Queiroz stopped and asked the man his story. The man made a decent living; he was even able to send his children to school. All of his income came from tips that were thrown out of the windows of passing vehicles. These travelers knew that if it were not for this man maintaining the road, they would have no way to travel this route. This convinced Queiroz that if road users understand that there are no better alternatives, they will be willing to pay to use the facility.
He also described a toolkit developed by the World Bank that can be used to determine the feasibility of pursuing a project as a PPP.