Marco Chitti
@chittimarco.bsky.social
Researcher on urban planning and public transportation.
https://marcochitti.substack.com/
https://marcochitti.substack.com/
India has coalition governments and a very complex multi-party system.
November 11, 2025 at 1:04 AM
India has coalition governments and a very complex multi-party system.
Westminster FPTP type of government and "rolling program" do not really fit in the same sentence.
November 11, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Westminster FPTP type of government and "rolling program" do not really fit in the same sentence.
Essentially, it works like the image below. The intersection is managed with only two phases (e.g., no left-turn phase nor delayed right), and ped crossing is multi-stage. When a transit vehicles approach, the signal turns red for everyone. It requires refuge islands for pedestrians.
November 10, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Essentially, it works like the image below. The intersection is managed with only two phases (e.g., no left-turn phase nor delayed right), and ped crossing is multi-stage. When a transit vehicles approach, the signal turns red for everyone. It requires refuge islands for pedestrians.
In Canada, everyone relies on private firms specialized in estimations. They generally use privately produced unit cost libraries (like RS Means) and various rule-of-thumbs derived from local practices and various manuals, and/or "best practices" from the US FTA
November 10, 2025 at 6:13 PM
In Canada, everyone relies on private firms specialized in estimations. They generally use privately produced unit cost libraries (like RS Means) and various rule-of-thumbs derived from local practices and various manuals, and/or "best practices" from the US FTA
It really depends on how you define 100% design. This really varies between countries and projects. Is 100% design "I can go in the worksite and start building" level of detail or "I can make a very accurate analytical estimate for bidding" level of detail? Because that's 2 different things
November 10, 2025 at 6:05 PM
It really depends on how you define 100% design. This really varies between countries and projects. Is 100% design "I can go in the worksite and start building" level of detail or "I can make a very accurate analytical estimate for bidding" level of detail? Because that's 2 different things
I would really like to see how aggregate construction inflation indexes are calculated, though. Because they tend to be very rough, and often they don't really capture the specificity of public works. Need to develop 40+ public works-specific indexes as French do! Or analytical input prices as Italy
November 10, 2025 at 6:01 PM
I would really like to see how aggregate construction inflation indexes are calculated, though. Because they tend to be very rough, and often they don't really capture the specificity of public works. Need to develop 40+ public works-specific indexes as French do! Or analytical input prices as Italy
There are simply many more analytical costs publicly available elsewhere. A lot of our budgeting and project delivery issues in Canada are downstream of an extremely opaque market and of asymmetrical knowledge about actual costs between the private and the public.
November 10, 2025 at 5:04 PM
There are simply many more analytical costs publicly available elsewhere. A lot of our budgeting and project delivery issues in Canada are downstream of an extremely opaque market and of asymmetrical knowledge about actual costs between the private and the public.
Do like the French do. They publish the latest estimates before procurement in current prices and then just publish actual spending adjusted for inflation when the project is finished and labelnas cost increase only what's above inflation.
November 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Do like the French do. They publish the latest estimates before procurement in current prices and then just publish actual spending adjusted for inflation when the project is finished and labelnas cost increase only what's above inflation.
It's often based on a mix of the Flivjberg et al. works (poorly understood and taken at first degree) and a sample of projects the estimators worked on previously. So bad management gets perpetuated as inevitable in every successive budget exercise.
November 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM
It's often based on a mix of the Flivjberg et al. works (poorly understood and taken at first degree) and a sample of projects the estimators worked on previously. So bad management gets perpetuated as inevitable in every successive budget exercise.
Do like the French. This project is evaluated at xxx million at €2025. Then, keep the inflation scenarios for yourself and your internal budgeting exercise . Don't present it as an actual cost.
November 10, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Do like the French. This project is evaluated at xxx million at €2025. Then, keep the inflation scenarios for yourself and your internal budgeting exercise . Don't present it as an actual cost.
It's like saying that you are planning for a budget were things will necessarily go very wrong because you, project owner, are 100% sure that you will be unable to deploy any organizational or design measure to avoid costs to escalate out of control.
November 10, 2025 at 3:05 PM
It's like saying that you are planning for a budget were things will necessarily go very wrong because you, project owner, are 100% sure that you will be unable to deploy any organizational or design measure to avoid costs to escalate out of control.
My favourite thing is the habit of running Monte Carlo regressions to define a distribution of uncertainty and then instead of presenting it as a bracket, as you should do for any uncertainty, they take 90% of the sample and take the upper level as the necessary contingency to be written in budgets.
November 10, 2025 at 3:05 PM
My favourite thing is the habit of running Monte Carlo regressions to define a distribution of uncertainty and then instead of presenting it as a bracket, as you should do for any uncertainty, they take 90% of the sample and take the upper level as the necessary contingency to be written in budgets.
Sure, site preparation, construction staging, flagging, site safety, etc, definitely sum up to a very round 25% overhead on top of actual hard costs. What a luck that all these stuff make up for a very round 1/4.
November 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Sure, site preparation, construction staging, flagging, site safety, etc, definitely sum up to a very round 25% overhead on top of actual hard costs. What a luck that all these stuff make up for a very round 1/4.
If you see a headline cost of 100, you can be assured that the actual hard cost estimates based on hard math (quantity * unit price) are less than 20. The rest is very rough guesstimates wrapped in made-up science.
Yes, sure, honey, you definitely can forecast inflation in 2035.
Yes, sure, honey, you definitely can forecast inflation in 2035.
November 10, 2025 at 2:56 PM
If you see a headline cost of 100, you can be assured that the actual hard cost estimates based on hard math (quantity * unit price) are less than 20. The rest is very rough guesstimates wrapped in made-up science.
Yes, sure, honey, you definitely can forecast inflation in 2035.
Yes, sure, honey, you definitely can forecast inflation in 2035.
Don't underestimate how much the US elites have fallen for their own ideology that America is the best democracy ever invented and no fix is needed.
November 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Don't underestimate how much the US elites have fallen for their own ideology that America is the best democracy ever invented and no fix is needed.
There is no way they can complete it by 2040. Israel has a long and consistent history of mismanaging infrastructure projects. And for what I've heard, they are setting themselves up for failure for this one, too.
November 10, 2025 at 2:00 PM
There is no way they can complete it by 2040. Israel has a long and consistent history of mismanaging infrastructure projects. And for what I've heard, they are setting themselves up for failure for this one, too.
Australia is the best example of this counter-reality. It probably helped that they don't have landlocked population centers as much as NA and the issue of going around an entire continent to ship goods from coast to coast
November 9, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Australia is the best example of this counter-reality. It probably helped that they don't have landlocked population centers as much as NA and the issue of going around an entire continent to ship goods from coast to coast
Funding and prioritizing has definitely been one of the driving factors behind project delivery problems in Naples. It doesn't help that line 7 is technically an extension of a regionally-owned local railway, which means it got its capital funding through EU-coesion funds cycles
November 9, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Funding and prioritizing has definitely been one of the driving factors behind project delivery problems in Naples. It doesn't help that line 7 is technically an extension of a regionally-owned local railway, which means it got its capital funding through EU-coesion funds cycles
There is one more station under construction, Parco San Paolo.
The rest of the line is not even clearly planned. They are discussing a new alignment after Terracina.
The rest of the line is not even clearly planned. They are discussing a new alignment after Terracina.
November 9, 2025 at 5:22 AM
There is one more station under construction, Parco San Paolo.
The rest of the line is not even clearly planned. They are discussing a new alignment after Terracina.
The rest of the line is not even clearly planned. They are discussing a new alignment after Terracina.
Nope. Everybody can use it. It's called UnicoCampania
November 8, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Nope. Everybody can use it. It's called UnicoCampania
TBF, Naples has had integrated ticketing since the late 1990s at the city level, later extended to the entire region.
November 8, 2025 at 7:53 PM
TBF, Naples has had integrated ticketing since the late 1990s at the city level, later extended to the entire region.
The year is 2035. Naples boasts the densest urban railway network in Europe. But the trains run every 79 minutes between 11 am and 3 pm every third Tuesday of the third month of leap years.
November 8, 2025 at 7:12 PM
The year is 2035. Naples boasts the densest urban railway network in Europe. But the trains run every 79 minutes between 11 am and 3 pm every third Tuesday of the third month of leap years.