Boulevard of broken dreams: public audit, mobility infrastructure deficits and the limits of correction in Germany

Abstract

Background: Traffic and transport infrastructure is a vital prerequisite for social and economic development as well as the socio-spatial integration of countries and regions’ societal strata. It sets the course for the future of mobility and transport-related social and economic development and is thus inherently political. Deficiencies in traffic infrastructure provision, such as delays in project deployment and exceeding costs, increase the potential for public discontent. It is the mission of public audits to identify, diminish and remedy infrastructure deployment problems—and to encourage best practice models and policy learning. Despite their importance, shortcomings that audit offices identify as well as the reactions and follow-up measures of the addressees to official problem statements remain vastly under-researched. As the transport area is one of the core emitters of CO2 and at the heart of many transition policies to tackle climate change, lack of knowledge regarding transformative change opportunities in the mobility sector is detrimental to the success of these adaptations. One major policy issue in this respect are reform strategies regarding transport and traffic infrastructure planning and project implementation. Our systematic analysis of public audit reports in Germany on traffic and transport infrastructure project deployment contributes to a better understanding of this issue. Results: We detect patterns of compliance and resistance to audit office assessments by the executing administrations in traffic infrastructure project deployment. While we witness at least the partial compliance and announcement of corrections in 51% of the cases, in about 19% of the cases, the responsible authorities acknowledge the audit’s critique (partially), but do not signal concrete willingness for further corrections. In more than 20% of the identified audit statements, the audit’s assessments are even rejected without corrections to the further projects’ execution. Conclusion: We analyze the extents and limits of organizational learning and institutional adaptation of public control strategies in mobility and transport-related infrastructure provision. Our contribution discusses possible reasons for sustainable transport and traffic infrastructure development deficits as well as shortcomings in infrastructure planning and project deployment. We thus try to open new avenues for debate on improved sustainable infrastructure policy and planning.