Road schemes are of major importance in the global PPP market, but whereas PPP toll roads have been relatively well studied less attention has been paid to long term Design-Build-Finance-Operate (DBFO) arrangements covered by shadow toll or availability payment mechanisms. Here the UK and Spain are key players in the field. Now that a good number of DBFO schemes in the UK and Spain have been operational for well over half the contract period, there is scope for a detailed comparison of DBFO performance in both countries and an analysis of how the DBFO model has evolved.

This study uses information gathered from 19 UK and 26 Spanish DBFO schemes. In the UK, eleven projects used a shadow toll mechanism, five an availability payment mechanism, two an active management payment mechanism, and one a combination of volume-based (i.e. shadow toll) and availability. The projects became operational between 1996 and 2012. All 26 Spanish projects use a shadow toll mechanism and the first of these projects became operational in 2001.