Stakeholder Involvement in the Development of Megaprojects: A Dedicated Framework for Transport Infrastructure

Megaprojects have emerged as the preferred way to deliver results in a wide range of industries characterized by high complexity. Lately, due to the failure of several megaprojects because of poor stakeholder management, there was an increasing recognition of the need to involve the “non-market stakeholders” since the early stages. However, this awareness was not followed by the development of an applicable model for stakeholder inclusion in transport infrastructure, the subject of this work. After a review of specific literature, existing guidelines on citizen consultation were integrated with specific individual cases to balance the two contributions. At the end of the process, a framework composed of questions was proposed to guide the stakeholder involvement process. The questions were paired with cases related to transport infrastructure, to overcome the problem of the inherent generality of the guidelines. Finally, two megaprojects were analyzed through the proposed model, namely the enhancement of the A66 in the United Kingdom, and the preliminary stages of a similar Italian project. The Italian case study will then also be followed in later stages, allowing real-time comparison between the model and a megaproject, which will lead to the refinement of research questions and the integration of data.