Hard infrastructure in general has the following attributes:
Capital assets that provide services These are physical assets that provide services. The people employed in the hard infrastructure sector generally maintain, monitor, and operate the assets, but do not offer services to the clients or users of the infrastructure. Interactions between workers and clients are generally limited to administrative tasks concerning ordering, scheduling, or billing of services.
Large networks These are large networks constructed over generations and are not often replaced as a whole system. The network provides services to a geographically defined area, and has a long life because its service capacity is maintained by continual refurbishment or replacement of components as they wear out.
Historicity and interdependence The system or network tends to evolve over time as it is continuously modified, improved, enlarged, and as various components are rebuilt, decommissioned or adapted to other uses. The system components are interdependent and not usually capable of subdivision or separate disposal, and consequently are not readily disposable within the commercial marketplace.
Natural monopoly The systems tend to be
natural monopolies, insofar that
economies of scale means that multiple agencies providing a service are less efficient than would be the case if a single agency provided the service. This is because the assets have a high initial cost and a value that is difficult to determine. In
public economics theory, infrastructure assets such as highways and railways tend to be
public goods, in that they carry a high degree of
non-excludability, where no household can be excluded from using it, and
non-rivalry, where no household can reduce another from enjoying it. These properties lead to
externality,
free ridership, and
spillover effects that distort perfect competition and market efficiency. Hence, government becomes the best actor to supply the public goods. == Transportation ==