Implementation Context Typology. This section deals with the identification and detailed explanation of the key dimensions, which are supposed to be crucial regarding the implementation context of transport infrastructure projects. Based on the following six dimensions – the general political, legal/regulatory, administrative, macro-economic, financial context and specific governmental PPP support – a typology on implementation context of a certain country is constructed, combining different well-established indicators of leading international organizations with previous research on this topic (see the COST Action TU1001 on Public Private Partnerships in Transport: Trends and Theory). The implementation context is considered in general important to the success or failure of a certain public policy. Before we explain in detail which dimensions and variables we take into consideration for constructing the implementation context typology, it is important to state very clearly that we approach transport infrastructure policy as just any other type of public policy regarding implementation context. Or in other words, we have chosen to deal with implementation context in general terms for both substantive and pragmatic reasons. Although transport infrastructure policy has some specific characteristics as a policy domain or area, we argue that many of these elements are covered by the ‘transport mode context’ (see section 2.2). In order to avoid potentially confusing redundancies or overlaps, the typology on implementation context will be general in nature. There is one exception: as part of the legal and regulatory framework we will make use of a transport specific indicator (OECD ETCR) to get an insight into the level of market liberalization. This is justifiable because it serves only as a supplement to two other more general indicators, and because it provides highly relevant information in an EU policy context. In addition, there is also a more pragmatic line of reasoning. It would be very difficult to gather the necessary data on implementation context just for transport infrastructure policy. The existing indexes developed by international organizations like the OECD or World Bank which attempt to capture aspects like the level of corruption or independence of the judicial system make no distinction between different policy domains. Therefore, we also follow this approach and we will describe the implementation context for transport infrastructure project in general terms. When dealing wi...
