Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in Road Infrastructure Projects: A Review of Evolution, Approaches, and Prospects

Abstract

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are a widely used procurement method for constructing, maintaining, and operating roads, constituting an alternative to the traditional public works model (TPW). This is because the efficiency of the PPP model has been highlighted over the TPW model. This study carried out a bibliometric analysis of 734 public articles from Scopus on PPPs in road infrastructure projects between 1993 and 2022. The results allow us to identify the general characteristics of the research; the most relevant articles; the most productive journals; and the most prolific authors, institutions, and countries and their main international cooperation networks, as well as to detect the main current research topics, which are: financial management, costs and pricing systems, privatization of transport infrastructure services, and sustainability. Consequently, this study provides a comprehensive overview of research on PPPs in road infrastructure projects over the last 30 years. This can reinforce and complement previous bibliometric analyses on PPPs in road infrastructure projects.