Once upon a time, in a European country, which shall remain nameless, but that’s known for great wine, fantastic cheese, too much pasta and good weather even if in Spain all that is better, decided to build a PPP highway connecting two major cities.

The project went through the usual process, feasibility studies, tenders, and a long, complex financial close.

Everything seemed on track. Tax payer money was spent, as usual, as if was nobody’s.

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The private consortium, excited about the project, designed a state-of-the-art highway with cutting-edge tolling technology. The best of the best. The more modern. The most expensive… wining points in a weird tender.

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There was just one small… well, tiny problem.

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Nobody Thought About the Exits.

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Yes, the exits in the highway…

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The highway was built, beautifully paved, fully operational… but it had no proper exits for local towns along the way.

Just the two cities.

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Of course, this couldn’t be Spain. We like to use high speed trains in the metro, putting stops every few hundred metres so that full potential of the trains cannot be reached.

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Well… this tiny problem, as I was saying, meant that only people traveling between the two big cities could use it, while smaller towns in between had no access unless they drove way out of their way just to get onto the road.

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Why?

Probably no election time.

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The result?

Traffic forecasts were completely wrong. Toll revenue was a disaster. The private operator had to negotiate a bailout because they couldn’t pay back the debt.

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The Government’s Genius Solution?

The government, realizing the mistake, proposed building new exits.

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Sounds reasonable, right?

But since this was a PPP contract, every additional exit was considered a “variation,” meaning the government had to pay millions more to the private consortium to fix what should have been obvious from the start!

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Lesson Learned?

Drink Spanish wine, Spanish Cheese and get a holiday home in Mallorca, and if you ever work on a PPP highway, don’t forget to look at the exits!

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Would you like another story? There are plenty of PPP blunders below.

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$29.90 The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare Learn about: The number 1 killer of Projects Why this was not going to be just "another construction project, mate"... Read more Get access now

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