About the AIAI Operations & Maintenance P3 Toolkit

Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) are performance-based contracts between the public and private sectors to provide a service or deliver an infrastructure asset. While the spectrum of delivery structures includes the traditional design-bid-build (DBB), Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), design-build (DB), and other alternative delivery methods, the term “Public-Private Partnership” usually refers to those structures that include a private financing component such as design-build-finance (DBF), design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM), and design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM). 

The main goal of a P3 is to strategically transfer or allocate risks associated with the various phases of an infrastructure project—predevelopment, design, construction, operations, maintenance, and/or rehabilitation—to the party best positioned to manage or mitigate those risks (whether that is the public sector or the private partner). 

Depending on the public agency’s goal, purpose, and need, P3 structures may take different forms, but generally, they include two significant phases: initial design and construction and a more extended period that may consist of the operations, maintenance, and/or rehabilitation of the asset by the developer’s O&M service provider. 

The purpose of this Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Toolkit is to provide clarity on: 

• • The role of operations, maintenance, and rehabilitation of an infrastructure asset within the context of a P3. 
  • The value of including operations, maintenance, and/or rehabilitation in a P3 agreement. 
  • The O&M service provider’s and P3 developer’s accountability during the O&M period and the mechanisms available to the public sector to deal with non-compliance events. 
  • Best practices for the development of contractual requirements, technical specifications, and solicitation documents. 
  • Handback provision – an introduction to the procedures and requirements to be considered before the end of the O&M period and the P3 agreement.

The O&M Toolkit will explore P3 models that involve the private sector performing operations, maintenance, and rehabilitation of the infrastructure asset or a combination of these activities.