Gateway or Getaway – The Interplay of Large Infrastructure Projects and Transportation Efficiency with the Example of Berlin Airport

Transportation efficiency is highly dependent on large public infrastructure projects for most transportation modes like airways (airports), railways (tracks), or road transportation (motorways). However, especially public infrastructure building is often delayed and very cost-intensive. The new Berlin airport (BER) project is a lighthouse example of such a project: Started already one month after the German reunification in 1990, official planning led to the start of building operations for a new Berlin airport only in 2006. At this time, costs were estimated at 2 billion Euro and an opening was scheduled for 2011. In reality, the costs accumulated to 7 billion Euro and the airport started after a planning and management odyssey as late as October 2020, 30 years after reunification. The associated question here is how transportation efficiency is affected by such developments and risks. The BER project provides a textbook example and is analyzed in detail in this paper with a mixed method approach, including qualitative document analysis and quantitative data envelopment analysis regarding major developments during the project. BER is reported to have suffered relevant efficiency losses due to the changeover to the new airport location in a 2021 to 2019 comparison. The role of trust and public-private partnerships in Project Management for infrastructure building are highlighted. This paper is one of the first research results to address the linkages between public infrastructure in transportation and empirical observations regarding transportation efficiency in the case of air transportation in Germany