port, where previous governance structures, organisational forms and ownership in many countries have changed radically. Recently, post-NPM reforms have been launched characterised among other things by increased awareness of political steering and coordina- tion. Both types of reforms are co-existing. An ex-post evaluation of these changes in governance, fi nancing, and organisation related to the sector’s performance is needed in order to consider if the current structures are the most suitable for the challenges of the twenty-fi rst century. The question is what works and what does not work? Furthermore the institutional structure should be evaluated in the light of the implementation gap between political objectives and actual implemented measures. Inherent to this research is the question of transferability of lessons from one context to another. Adequate institutional structures are pivotal to achieve the 2011 Transport White Paper goals. More specifi cally the following research topics could be suggested: •Public-private partnerships. A growing number of transport infrastructure projects cannot be funded solely by public budgets due to the shortage of tax revenues, high public debt, and the recent economic and fi nancial crises. Private capital investments in the construction, operation, and maintenance of public transport infrastructure are attracted more frequently in contractual models like design-build-operate-fi nance-maintain (DBOFM) in order to stimulate innovative design and use of modern technology, shorten design and construction times, reduce life-cycle costs and achieve more effi cient project management. The sharing of risks between the public party remaining responsible for legal acts, concessions, specifi cation of public and user requirements, supervision, accept- ance and payment on the one hand, and the private party fulfi lling the contractual obligations and getting remunerated is changing from project to project and country to country. A comprehensive and independent analysis of the impact of contractual models, input and output delivered for existing PPP projects in different transport sectors with regard to e.g. robustness, effi ciency, value for public money, user benefi ts, and environmental impact is necessary to evaluate the long-term viability of mixed public-private transport business arrangements. (H2020: 4.1.2; 4.4) • A customer-oriented European railway system. Railways have played an important strategic role in the European transport policy from the start and signifi cant initiatives have been taken and implemented in several EU directives. In spite of this, Euro- pean railways have not developed the necessary intermodal competitiveness to turn around generally declining markets shares and weak productivity increases. Speeding up the harmonisation of the railway sector is necessary to optimise capacity, interoperability, operation, and management to make railway services more integrated, and by that ensure 58
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