Light rail transit cost performance: Opportunities for future- proofing Peter E.D. Love a,⇑ , Dominic Ahiaga-Dagbui b , Morten Welde c , James Odeck c a Department of Civil Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, WA 6845, Australia b School of Architecture and Building, Deakin University, Woolstores, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia c Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway article info Article history: Received 1 March 2017 Accepted 2 April 2017 Available online 9 April 2017 Keywords: CAPEX performance Digitization Future-proofing Light rail transit OPEX abstract The cost performance of Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems have been scrutinized by the pop- ular press and public sector infrastructure agencies as they have been prone to incurring cost increases in their capital expenditures (CAPEX). In tackling such increases, emphasis is placed on mitigating strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias, which has hindered the public sectors ability to embrace innovation, particularly with regard to the justifica- tion and adoption of LRT. More often than not, operational expenditure (OPEX) is neglected, and is not considered a part of the transportation cost performance literature. The aim of this paper is to examine the equivocality that surrounds the determination of cost perfor- mance of LRT projects. It is suggested that the public sector should move beyond focusing on strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias, as many governments worldwide now have in place mechanisms to address such issues, and instead focus on future-proofing their assets. It is suggested that the key enablers of future-proofing LRT are (1) private finance; (2) delivery strategy (e.g. design-build-finance-operate); (3) digitization (e.g. building information modelling); and (4) asset management (e.g. smart technologies). If the public sector is to provide an LRT system that is cost effective and able to respond to the demands imposed by climate change, then it needs to be considered from a life- cycle perspective and funding sought from the private sector to ensure its viability. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The efficient provision of transportation infrastructure assets provides the hallmark of a well-functioning economy. Yet, the delivery of such assets has been and continues to be the bête noire for the public sector; they consistently experience cost overruns and fail to deliver their expected benefits (Terrill and Danks, 2016). In urban environments, Light Rail Transit (LRT) (i.e. mid-sized electrified rail technology) is often selected as preferred mode of transportation in lieu of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) (i.e. buses that run-on rubber tires on exclusive paved roadways and powered by diesel) by travelers in developed countries (Hensher et al., 2015; Hensher and Mulley, 2015). According to Hensher (2016) LRT dominates as it simply deemed to be ‘sexy and buses are boring, and that it offers a much better value for money than BRT’ (p. 289). When choosing between BRT and LRT options their costs parameters attract the most attention from decision-makers. In Australia, for example, the mean capital expenditure (CAPEX) per kilometer for BRT is $36.58 million compared to $63.5 mil- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2017.04.002 0965-8564/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: plove@iinet.net.au (P.E.D. Love), Dominic.Ahiaga-Dagbui@deakin.edu.au (D. Ahiaga-Dagbui), morten.welde@ntnu.no (M. Welde), james.odeck@ntnu.no (J. Odeck). Transportation Research Part A 100 (2017) 27–39 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Transportation Research Part A journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tra