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Modeling schedule overrun and cost escalation percentages of highway projects using fuzzy approach

Ahmed Ebrahim Abu El-Maaty (Department of Civil Engineering, Menoufia University, Shibeen El-kom, Egypt)
Amr M. El-Kholy (Faculty of Engineering, Beni Suef University, Beni Suef, Egypt)
Ahmed Yousry Akal (Department of Civil Engineering, Higher Institute for Engineering and Technology, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt)

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management

ISSN: 0969-9988

Article publication date: 18 September 2017

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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

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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