Modeling schedule overrun and cost escalation percentages of highway projects using fuzzy approach
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
ISSN: 0969-9988
Article publication date: 18 September 2017
Abstract
Purpose
Modeling represents the art of translating problems from an application area into tractable mathematical formulations whose theoretical and numerical analysis provides insight, answers and guidance useful for the originating application. The purpose of this paper is to determine the causal causes of schedule overrun and cost escalation of highway projects in Egypt in order to be used as independents variables in mathematical models for predicting the percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation of such projects in Egypt.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey of a randomly selected samples yielded responses from 40 owners, 15 consultants and 56 contractors. The survey includes 38 schedule overrun factors and 26 cost escalation factors. The effectiveness degree of the identified factors has been identified by the triangle fuzzy approach.
Findings
The results of the survey show that “contractor’s technical staff is insufficient and ineligible to accomplish the project” is the most important cause of schedule overrun, while the major cause of cost escalation is inadequate preparation of the project concerning planning and execution.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this study is predicting the percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation of highway projects in Egypt. Through the application of the linear regression analysis method and statistical fuzzy theory, four predictive models have been developed and it has been noted that the linear regression-based model shows prediction accuracy better than statistical fuzzy-based model in predicting percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation.
Keywords
Citation
Abu El-Maaty, A.E., El-Kholy, A.M. and Akal, A.Y. (2017), "Modeling schedule overrun and cost escalation percentages of highway projects using fuzzy approach", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 809-827. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-03-2016-0084
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited