Cross-national collaboration in strategic transport projects: The impact on benefits realization

This study investigates cross-national collaboration to realize benefits in strategic transport projects (STPs) characterized by complexity, ambiguity, and collaboration challenges between project organizations. With the increasing importance of STPs in realizing (developing) countries’ adequate transport needs and demands, we respond to calls for a more in-depth and long-term exploration of the benefits realized in STPs across the project lifecycle. We conducted a multi-method, longitudinal case study of the Addis-Ababa light rail transport project by building on interviews, observations, and secondary data. By adopting a longitudinal perspective, our findings draw out the collaboration challenges, and their impact on benefits realization, in a cross-national STP across the pre-planning, development, and operations phases. We contribute to how organizations collaborate in a cross-national STP to realize pricing and infrastructure benefits, and thereby provide an extension to our understanding of crucial benefits of STPs that go beyond the iron triangle.