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Disruption of infrastructure services can cause significant social and economic losses, particularly in the event of a natural disaster. The World Bank Group and the Government of Japan established the Quality Infrastructure Investment Partnership to focus attention on the quality dimensions of infrastructure in developing countries, with a focus on promoting disaster resilience. Moreover, to support infrastructure investment decision making for sustainable and resilient development, the World Bank and Kyoto University have operationalized key resilience concepts at the project level and developed quantitative indicators capturing key aspects of infrastructure resilience related to the road transport sector. These indicators estimate resilience, expressed as functionality loss and recovery time across four dimensions: travel time, economic benefit, provision of life-saving services, and provision of relief goods. The paper applies indicator calculations to three case studies of proposed bypass roads in Japan and provides an example comparison of calculated indicators across the three projects for each resilience dimension. Further piloting of the approach will help refine the indicators, test their relative utility in decision making, and offer a better understanding of the data and analytical demands.

Climate Resilience --- Environment --- Infrastructure Prioritization --- Infrastructure Resilience --- Natural Disasters --- Quality Infrastructure --- Resilient Roads --- Roads and Highways Performance --- Transport

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The unprecedented and irreversible loss of biodiversity in modern times is caused primarily by the elimination or degradation of natural habitats around the world. Since the construction and improvement of roads sometimes leads, directly or indirectly, to the loss and degradation of natural habitats, road construction and biodiversity aims are often at odds. However, many potentially serious conflicts between road projects and biodiversity conservation can be avoided. Induced negative impacts of road projects on biodiversity can be minimized by careful project siting, taking special care to avoid passing through protected areas and other critical natural habitats, including forested areas (which are especially vulnerable to induced impacts). Where some natural habitat loss is inevitable, appropriate mitigation may include the establishment of strict protection zones alongside the road, or compensatory protected areas elsewhere to offset the expected road-related natural habitat loss (as is typically required under the World Bank's Natural Habitats Policy). This kind of mitigation requires effective inter-agency collaboration--for example, between the agencies responsible for roads and protected areas. Direct adverse impacts of road works on biodiversity can also be significant, but they are generally simpler to avoid or mitigate, because they are more fully under the control of road construction agencies, contractors, and concessionaires. Biodiversity loss and environmental damage can be considerably reduced when planners and road construction agencies site roads adjacent to existing railways, pipelines, or transmission lines; practice sound road engineering; maintain good drainage and natural water flows; minimize roadside habitat loss; and, exercise care in the siting and design of borrow pits, construction camps, and other complementary facilities. Environmental rules for contractors, including transparent penalties for noncompliance, need to be incorporated within bidding documents and contracts. Ideally, road projects are designed and implemented so as to avoid or compensate adequately for any adverse impacts on natural habitats and biodiversity. Through mitigation measures such as support for compensatory protected areas, potentially controversial projects can even produce significant net environmental benefits, a win-win outcome.

Biodiversity --- Climate Change --- Environment --- Inter-Urban Roads and Passenger Transport --- Roads --- Roads and Highways Performance --- Rural Development --- Rural Roads & Transport --- Transport

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Transport infrastructure is deemed to be central to development and consumes a large fraction of the development assistance envelope. Yet there is debate about the economic impact of road projects. This paper proposes an approach to assess the differential development impacts of alternative road construction and prioritize various proposals, using Nigeria as a case study. Recognizing that there is no perfect measure of economic well-being, a variety of outcome metrics are used, including crop revenue, livestock revenue, non-agricultural income, the probability of being multi-dimensionally poor, and local gross domestic product for Nigeria. Although the measure of transport is the most accurate possible, it is still endogenous because of the nonrandom placement of road infrastructure. This endogeneity is addressed using a seemingly novel instrumental variable termed the natural path: the time it would take to walk along the most logical route connecting two points without taking into account other, bias-causing economic benefits. Further, the analysis considers the potential endogeneity from nonrandom placement of households and markets through carefully chosen control variables. It finds that reducing transportation costs in Nigeria will increase crop revenue, non-agricultural income, the wealth index, and local gross domestic product. Livestock sales increase as well, although this finding is less robust. The probability of being multi-dimensionally poor will decrease. The results also cast light on income diversification and structural changes that may arise. These findings are robust to relaxing the exclusion restriction. The paper also demonstrates how to prioritize alternative road programs by comparing the expected development impacts of alternative New Partnership for Africa's Development projects.

Agriculture --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Development --- Economic Theory & Research --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Mpi --- Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index --- Nepad --- Roads --- Roads and Highways Performance --- Rural Development --- Rural Roads & Transport --- Transport --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning

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There is a long-standing debate over whether new roads unavoidably lead to environmental damage, especially forest loss, but causal identification has been elusive. Using multiple causal identification strategies, this paper studies the construction of new rural roads to over 100,000 villages and the upgrading of 10,000 kilometers of national highways in India. The new rural roads had precise zero effects on local deforestation. In contrast, the highway upgrades caused substantial forest loss, which appears to be driven by increased timber demand along the transportation corridors. In terms of forests, last mile connectivity had a negligible environmental cost, while expansion of major corridors had important environmental impacts.

Deforestation --- Environment --- Environmental Impact --- Flood Control --- Infrastructure Investment --- Inter-Urban Roads and Passenger Transport --- Road Construction --- Roads and Highways --- Roads and Highways Performance --- Rural Roads --- Rural Roads and Transport --- Transport --- Water Resources

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Since 2004 Ethiopia has experienced strong and generally broad-based real economic growth averaging 10.7 percent per annum. It is one of the most populous countries in the world, but it is not highly urbanized. Nevertheless, urbanization in Ethiopia is taking place rapidly, and is expected to increase over the coming few decades. Addis Ababa, is its commercial and political center and exemplary of the rapid urban growth of Ethiopia. The rapid urban and metropolitan growth in Addis Ababa is exacerbated by poor planning and land-use, inadequate infrastructure, and chronic housing shortage. A key challenge for housing in the Addis Ababa metropolitan area, and, indeed, of planning in general, is that lack of coordination with transportation. The one factor that has mitigated the growth in congestion has been that motorization rates in Addis Ababa are very low by global standards. Over the past seven years, Addis Ababa has been making a concerted effort to improve the urban transport situation, largely through large investments in new infrastructure, including roads, a new Light Rail Transit (LRT) system (under construction) and plans for a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, and improved standards and practices for improving and integrating pedestrian facilities in major transport capital projects. It has invested heavily in its road asset stock, with 26 percent of its capital investment budget dedicated to transport. These investments in the road network may provide less economic and mobility value for residents than their planners may have intended, for four reasons. Indeed, at the current low rates of motorization, the frequent and ubiquitous congestion in the city suggests substantial shortcomings in how traffic is managed, rather than a fundamental mismatch between transport supply and demand. In order to improve public transport, for the city's largely non-motorized population, substantial investments in mass transport network have been made or identified. The current public transport provision/operation has a number of weaknesses, with governance being a critical one. Even though most trips in Addis Ababa are made by walking, facilities for pedestrians tend to be inadequate and substandard. Integrating transport with land-use development has also proven to be very difficult in Addis Ababa. In terms of overall urban development, although the Ethiopian government is making attempts at planning and catering for the rapid urban growth, urbanization still takes place largely in an unplanned/informal way. In recent years, the rate of spatial expansion of the city is outpacing the rate of population growth, resulting in a less than efficient overall physical form.

Bus Services --- Economies of Scale --- Emissions --- Infrastructure Investment --- Inter-Urban Roads and Passenger Transport --- Mobility --- Population Growth --- Road Accidents --- Roads --- Roads and Highways Performance --- Sanitation --- Traffic Accidents --- Traffic Volumes --- Transport --- Transport Costs --- Urban Development --- Urban Sprawl --- Vehicles