Pillar 2: Infrastructure

What does it capture? The quality and extension of transport infrastructure (road, rail, water and air) and utility infrastructure.

Why does it matter? Better-connected geographic areas have generally been more prosperous. Well-developed infrastructure lowers transportation and transaction costs, and facilitates the movement of goods and people and the transfer of information within a country and across borders. It also ensures access to power and water—both necessary conditions for modern economic activity

 

2.01 Quality of road network

 Score on the Road Quality Index, which measures average speed and straightness of a driving itinerary connecting the 10 or more largest cities that together account for at least 15% of the economy’s total population. The scale ranges from 0 to 100 (excellent). | 2016

The Road Quality Index, developed by the World Economic Forum, comprises two elements:

1) a measure of the average speed of a driving itinerary connecting the 10 or more largest cities in an economy accounting for at least 15% of the economy’s total population;

2) a measure of road straightness.

The itinerary was not optimized and connects the cities from the largest to the smallest. Any leg involving a ferry was excluded from the average speed calculation. As a first step to the identification of cities to include in the itinerary, pairwise distances (“as the crow flies”) were calculated, and when the distance was less than 20 kilometres, the smallest city in the pair was excluded. The road straightness corresponds to the ratio of the sum of driving distances between each city in the journey to the sum of crow fly distances between each city in the journey. For this component, legs involving a ferry were included. The APIs of Google Directions and Open Street Map were used to compute the itinerary. The Geonames database was used for city populations and coordinates. For more information about this indicator, please contact gcp@weforum.org.

Source: World Economic Forum’s calculations.

 

2.02 Quality of road infrastructure

Response to the survey question “In your country, what is the quality (extensiveness and condition) of road infrastructure?” [1 = extremely poor—among the worst in the world; 7 = extremely good—among the best in the world] | 2017–2018 weighted average or most recent period available

Source: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey. For more details, refer to Appendix B of this report.

 

2.03 Railroad density

Kilometres of railroad per 1,000 square kilometres of land. | 2016

Source: The World Bank Group.

 

 2.04 Efficiency of train services

Response to the survey question “In your country, how efficient (i.e. frequency, punctuality, speed, price) are train transport services?” [1 = extremely inefficient, among the worst in the world; 7 = extremely efficient, among the best in the world] | 2017–2018 weighted average or most recent period available

 

Source: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey. For more details, refer to Appendix B of this report.

 

2.05 Airport connectivity

Represents the IATA airport connectivity indicator, which measures the degree of integration of a country within the global air transport network. | 2018

For each airport, the number of available seats to each destination is weighted by the size of the destination airport (in terms of number of passengers handled). The weighted totals are then summed for all destinations, then for all airports in the country to produce a score. The log transformation of the raw value is raised to a cubic power before converting it to the 0 to 100 score.

Source: International Air Transport Association (IATA).

 

2.06 Efficiency of air transport services

Response to the survey question “In your country, how efficient (i.e. frequency, punctuality, speed, price) are air transport services?” [1 = extremely inefficient, among the worst in the world; 7 = extremely efficient, among the best in the world] | 2017–2018 weighted average or most recent period available

Source: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey. For more details, refer to Appendix B of this report.

 

2.07 Liner shipping connectivity

Score on the Liner Shipping Connectivity Index, which assesses a country’s connectivity to global shipping networks. The index uses an open scale, with the benchmark score of 100 corresponding to the most connected country in 2004 (China).| 2017

The index is based on five components of the maritime transport sector: the number of ships, their container-carrying capacity, the maximum vessel size, the number of services and the number of companies that deploy container ships in a country’s ports.

Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

 

2.08 Efficiency of seaport services

Response to the survey question “In your country, how efficient (i.e. frequency, punctuality, speed, price) are seaport services (ferries, boats) (for landlocked countries: assess access to seaport services)?” [1 = extremely inefficient, among the worst in the world; 7 = extremely efficient, among the best in the world] | 2017–2018 weighted average or most recent period available

Source: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey. For more details, refer to Appendix B of this report.

 

2.09 Electricity access

Percentage of population with access to electricity. | 2016 estimate

Electricity access entails a household having initial access to sufficient electricity to power a basic bundle of energy services— at a minimum, several lightbulbs, task lighting (such as a flashlight), phone.

Source: International Energy Agency (IEA).

 

2.10 Electricity quality

Electric power transmission and distribution losses as a percentage of domestic supply. | 2015 estimate

Source: International Energy Agency (IEA).

 

2.11 Exposure to unsafe drinking water

Risk-weighted percentage of population exposed to unsafe drinking water. | 2016

This indicator is reported as a summary exposure value (SEV): it measures a population’s exposure to unsafe drinking water, taking into account the extent of exposure by risk level and the severity of that risk’s contribution to disease burden. The indicator takes the value 0 when no excess risk for a population exists and the value 1 when the population is at the highest level of risk.

Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

 

2.12 Reliability of water supply

Response to the survey question “In your country, how reliable is the water supply (lack of interruptions and flow fluctuations)?” [1 = extremely unreliable; 7 = extremely reliable] | 2017–2018 weighted average or most recent period available

Source: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey. For more details, refer to Appendix B of this report.