Curbing Poor-Quality in Large-Scale Transport Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

Poor-quality remains a pervasive challenge for the delivery of large-scale transport infrastructure projects. Typically, it manifests as nonconformance and often requires rework. If, however, a nonconformance goes unidentified, then an asset's integrity can be jeopardized and put people's lives at risk. Hence, governments should shoulder the responsibility for quality. In practice, however, there has been a proclivity for governments to place fixed-price contracts and high-level quality risks on contractors. Yet, there is a dearth of research that has addressed the issue of poor-quality within large-scale transport infrastructure projects. In this article, we attempt to fill this gap and adopt an illustrative case-study approach to garner an understanding as to why poor-quality manifests during the construction of large-scale transport projects. We examine the issue of poor-quality in three high-profile rail transit projects using the gray literature: 1) Delhi Airport Metro Express (India); 2) Honolulu Rail Transit (United States); and 3) Sydney Skytrain (Australia). Then, drawing on empirical observations from two road projects, a highway corridor and a busway, we bring to the fore the poor-quality issue that pervades practice. To curb poor-quality, we suggest that the public and private sectors work collaboratively and share risks to ensure the benefits and value of an asset can be realized. To facilitate the process of collaboration and sharing of quality risks, we propose a Standard Life-cycle Quality Assessment system that can be used to ensure projects conform to standards and requirements.