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Cost overruns in transportation infrastructure projects: Sowing the seeds for a probabilistic theory of causation

Yes / Understanding the cause of cost overruns in transportation infrastructure projects has been
a topic that has received considerable attention from academics and the popular press.
Despite studies providing the essential building blocks and frameworks for cost overrun
mitigation and containment, the problem still remains a pervasive issue for
Governments worldwide. The interdependency that exists between ‘causes’ that lead to
cost overruns materialising have largely been ignored when considering the likelihood
and impact of their occurrence. The vast majority of the cost overrun literature has tended
to adopt a deterministic approach in examining the occurrence of the phenomenon; in this
paper a shift towards the adoption of pluralistic probabilistic approach to cost overrun
causation is proposed. The establishment of probabilistic theory incorporates the ability
to consider the interdependencies of causes so to provide Governments with a holistic
understanding of the uncertainties and risks that may derail the delivery and increase
the cost of transportation infrastructure projects. This will further assist in the design of
effective mitigation and containment strategies that will ensure future transportation
infrastructure projects meet their expected costs as well as the need of taxpayers. / Australian Research Council (DP160102882)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/11323
Date2016 August 1918
CreatorsLove, P.E.D., Ahiaga-Dagbui, D.D., Irani, Zahir
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Accepted manuscript
Rights© 2017 Elsevier. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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