The Study “Modernization of the SS 275 Maglie-Santa Maria di Leuca. Application of the Guidelines for the evaluation of investments in public works" of the Infrastructure Unit of Agici, the results of which will be presented in a meeting tomorrow in Lecce, is a first example of application of the Guidelines of MIT, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport .
The construction of the SS 275 determines a series of net benefits measurable in 95 million € and economic and social repercussions equal to approximately 33 million €, over a period of 30 years. The methodology adopted in the Study, in order to quantify the impacts of the implementation of the intervention, is mainly based on the MIT Guidelines. They define the criteria for the ex-ante evaluation (Cost-Benefit Analysis) of the individual works under the responsibility of MIT and constitute the key element for a new approach to infrastructural planning focused on the rigorous evaluation of public investments.
The Study itself clearly has a local value but its general interest lies in the fact that it is the first concrete application of the MIT Guidelines to an infrastructure project. And it is the demonstration of how a generalized application of the CBA to priority national infrastructure projects can be a useful tool for evaluating them. In fact, the CBA would make it possible to verify the effects, positive and negative, on the territories involved and, more generally, on the community, the induced effects on the economy (e.g. GDP growth), as well as the implicit costs of the non-implementation of the infrastructure.
The absence in Italy of a serious and correct CBA, upstream of each intervention, determines significant costs in economic, environmental and social terms, which can be estimated at around €3 billion a year. The value is based on the Registry of Unfinished Works and refers to wasted investments, costs of non-use and missed environmental and social benefits.
