Port Planning and Investment Toolkit

In recent years, ports have emphasized their need for a go-to guide to plan, fund and execute critical repair and project upgrades. While the public largely remains unaware that ports receive and move out billions of dollars in goods today and will require the capacity to handle trillions of dollars’ worth of goods in the future, this topic is not new to port officials. These capabilities require costly investments and although ports have a history of entering public-private partnerships to operate their facilities, funding their modern intermodal freight projects is requiring the port industry to engage with a new, larger cast of public and private partners.

In order to help solve these challenges, the Department of Transportation and the American Association of Port Authorities brought together experts from around the port industry to develop an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-execute Port Planning and Investment Toolkit. This Toolkit is being built around modules on planning, funding and executing projects, with the goal of making navigating the best course of action to accomplish your goals easier and more user friendly than ever before. The toolkit modules can be used to help ports:

Evaluate port conditions
Define problems
Plan thoroughly
Navigate the preplanning process
Engage private partners
Present actionable needs to administrators
Access available funding
Complete project

A Funding Strategy: Getting Started

The Funding Strategy module is the first tool developed for the Port Planning and Investment Toolkit.

Click here to access the Case Studies illustrating the use of the funding strategies. These include examples of (1) long-term capital planning, (2) upgrading capacity, (3) asset-backed and leased financing, (4) weighing traditional vs. alternative financing and (5) responding to environmental requirements.

Click here to download the complete Funding Strategies Module document.
Click here to download the Funding Strategies Port Concessions Evaluation Tool.
Click here to download the Funding Strategy Checklist.

Before ports make any large investment decisions or can get local, state, federal and private partners on board in support of repairs and upgrades, a funding strategy must be outlined defining the port’s objectives, strategies and timelines for finding specific forms of investment and delivery. The Maritime Administration and AAPA recognize each port investment project is unique with its own set of obstacles. Our team of industry experts developed the Funding Strategy module to guide careful evaluation and planning to determine the best approach for investment strategies that will get attention and garner support.

While the safe and easy transfer of goods and passengers is a port’s main function, each port has its own unique circumstances for financial needs and appropriate solutions. Your port may be faced with different needs than another, and also have different financial means to solve these problems. There is no one way to solve every port need. This module offers a range of solutions designed to address a variety of needs, as well as an example analysis tool that can be used to evaluate the financial feasibility of a port terminal concession.

This material is based upon work supported by the US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration under Agreement No DTMA-91-H-2013-004. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of, or a position that is endorsed by, the U.S. Government, the U.S. Department of Transportation, or any sub-agency or employee thereof.