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The Need for a Turning Point in Megaprojects Planning and Appraisal Practices—The Case of the Italian Section of the Mediterranean Corridor

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Mega Transport Infrastructure Planning

Abstract

Megaprojects can be defined as extremely complex infrastructure projects, costing typically more than US$1 billion, presenting usually long development cycles (in some cases even several decades) and generating substantial (direct and indirect) impacts on communities, environments and budgets. This complexity, in particular, has to be considered not merely in engineering terms, but rather, it arises from the external context into which such projects are placed involving a number of actors and variables whose trends and mutual interactions are difficult to predict.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to the most recent revision of the TEN-T Programme (2011), Corridor 5 is now called Mediterranean Corridor, stretching from Spain to the Ukrainian border. From its original conception it has undergone a number of modifications, including extensions to Lisbon and Kiev in the attempt to spread the possible economic benefits derived from the project. However, owing to a difficult economic situation, both Portugal and Ukraine seem to have renounced to the project.

  2. 2.

    HSR lines are typically designed for passenger travel. Although freight trains can use HSR lines, they cannot run at high speeds mainly for security reasons.

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Dean, M. (2015). The Need for a Turning Point in Megaprojects Planning and Appraisal Practices—The Case of the Italian Section of the Mediterranean Corridor. In: Fabbro, S. (eds) Mega Transport Infrastructure Planning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16396-3_2

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