A new way of doing infrastructure? The road is open but you need to accelerate to avoid 600 billion Costs of Not Doing. Here are the main results of the 2016 study of the Infrastructure Unit of Agici, coordinated by Professor Andrea Gilardoni and Stefano Clerici, presented during the XI Workshop entitled “Qualifying infrastructure investments. Experiences and tools to reduce waste” which took place in Milan, at the Stelline Foundation:
– The new national and European policies lead to more contained and increasingly technological infrastructure needs.
– The revision of priority objectives and changes to the regulatory framework are the result of a new approach to infrastructure planning and construction.
– Nonetheless, the country's infrastructure gap is still very significant. The Costs of Not Doing: 90 billion in the energy and environmental sectors; 137 billion in the mobility and logistics sectors; 380 billion in the TLC sector.
– The need for evaluation tools and methods, among which the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) stands out, to optimize public expenditure and direct investments towards truly priority works.
– The lack of a correct ACB of the works registered in the Registry of Unfinished Works costs the country around €3 billion a year.
– There is no shortage of delays: 85% of the strategic works analyzed have more than doubled the times. 67% experienced a cost increase of up to 80%.
– The Metro C of Rome, the Sorgente-Rizziconi power line, the Pedemontana Lombarda are emblematic examples of works with dilated times and costs.
– But something is moving: the attention of Italian institutions towards the CBA is growing and there are some positive experiences of application.
– Not only physical but also intelligent infrastructures: the potential of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the various infrastructural sectors is enormous.
– Digitization and IoT technologies are essential to develop resilient and sustainable environments and improve the city's public utility services, i.e. to develop Smart Cities.
At the presentation of the Agici Report on the Costs of Not Doing, the heads of institutions, companies and finance took part; in particular the councilors Massimo Garavaglia and Alessandro Sorte (Lombardy Region), Mario Vanni (Milan Municipality), Aldo Colombo (Lombardy Region), Mauro Grassi (Safe Italy), Chiara Assunta Ricci (Ministry of Economy and Finance), Ennio Cascetta (Technical Mission Structure), Alberto Zanardi (Parliamentary Budget Office), Domenico Andreis (CESI), Gianfranco Pignatone (Italian State Railways), Luigi Michi (Terna), Giordano Colarullo (Utilitalia), Gianluca Gustani (Cassa Depositi e Loans) and Gianfranco Sansone (UniCredit).
During the event, the 2016 Infrastructure Development Award, organized by the Management magazine of Utilities and Infrastructures, was awarded to prof. Ennio Cascetta, coordinator of the Technical Mission Structure of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, for having innovated, in a complex phase of MIT, planning, programming and selection of the country's infrastructural works.
