“Establishing a Public-Private Partnership (P3) program within a public agency involves issues from enabling legislation through identification, evaluation, negotiation, and management of P3 projects. Public agencies will need:

• A legal framework to establish and enforce long term P3 agreements;
• Policies, processes, and tools to guide policy decisions;
• Technical skills to identify, develop, and evaluate P3 projects and to negotiate agreements; and
• Skilled staff to manage and oversee projects over the long term.

This primer explores key issues involved in establishing a P3 program at a public agency with a focus on P3s for new capacity for highway infrastructure.

Building the organizational capacity needed to develop P3s while protecting the public interest
presents a major challenge to transportation agencies. Transportation agencies will need capabilities they have not traditionally possessed in order to identify and develop projects and negotiate and manage agreements with private partners. Agencies will need to acquire or develop new policy, legal, technical, financial and managerial skills and establish processes and structures, such as specialized P3 units, that allow them to apply those skills in a multidisciplinary way.”