Infra Dig – Toll Road to Damascus Experience

09/02/22 • 27 min

When it comes to asset ownership in the infrastructure and energy space, commonly-used metrics have become synonymous with good governance... but what if one of them was flawed?
This week’s Infra Dig podcast sees IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville talk to Robert Bain (UK) and Sylvain Senechal (Canada) of RBconsult about research they have conducted on toll roads that suggests the sector is sending out misleading messages about asset value and performance.
In one fell swoop, RBconsult has published a fascinating piece of research that exposes “cost per mile benchmarking” – which has been favoured for decades by traffic and revenue consultants – as being “fundamentally flawed and misleading”.
The toll road industry – in particular the owners of these assets – should right about now be sitting up and paying lot of attention as this metric that is regularly used to summarise (and often promote) the value of a particular toll facility, focuses on price alone... conveying nothing about consumer utility or customer satisfaction.
Rob and Sylvain benchmarked 68 toll facilities in the US by price (cost per mile) and by value (cost per minute saved) and have demonstrated that the different metrics result in entirely different rankings.
Tune in to the latest podcast and picture toll facility owners wiping down whiteboards as they reassess value and performance by a different set of criteria that will change the landscape dramatically.

Previous Episode

Infra Dig – Namibian hydrogen… stunning ambitions

When it comes to ambitious projects, Namibia leads the field with a stunning project that will establish the southern African nation as a significant player in the fast-evolving hydrogen market.

In traditional Infra Dig style, the IJGlobal podcast turns the spotlight on the Southern Corridor Development Initiative in Namibia to find out what it’s all about.

IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville speaks to Marco Raffinetti, chief executive of Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, the company hoping to pioneer the scale-up of hydrogen production in Namibia.

This is a magnificent plan being driven by the Namibian government that aims to deliver the $9.4 billion project (roughly Namibia’s entire GDP), creating 15,000 jobs , and that – at full development – targets 300,000 metric tons of green hydrogen production per annum.

These hydrogen ambitions will be powered by 5GW of renewable energy generating capacity and 3GW of electrolyser capacity on land owned by the government... and the option to scale up dramatically.

This latest podcast runs for around 30 minutes and delves into everything from an update on the procurement process through to its financing, multilateral support... and so much more.

Next Episode

Infra Dig – Hy24’s hydrogen drive

Big bets are being put on the future of hydrogen... not many of them are quite as ambitious as Hy24’s masterplan to drive investments into delivering the energy source of the future.

Pierre-Etienne Franc – chief executive of Hy24 and a founding force behind the Hydrogen Council – talks to IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville about plans for the company and the fund it is creating.

Hy24 launched its equity vehicle – Clean H2 Infrastructure Fund – last October (2021) and looks set to hit final close next month at considerably more than its €1.8 billion hard cap, having already pulled in €1.6 billion with clearly some fresh announcements on the (very short) horizon.

In a far-ranging discussion that covers everything from LPs on the fund through to plans to deliver massive investments into the hydrogen space, Pierre-Etienne speaks candidly about the sector and its potential in the years to come.