Evaluation Of Road Projects Research Articles

Project Evaluation and Performance of Roads Construction in Rwanda: A Case of Nyarutarama Property Developers COTRACO Projects

The general objective of this study was to determine the degree to which Rwandan road building performance is influenced by the evaluation of road projects. The specific goals were to examine the road construction project evaluation process and its effect on Rwanda's road construction performance, to assess the impact of formative project evaluation on Rwanda's road construction performance, and to evaluate the impact of summative project evaluation on Rwanda's road construction performance. Descriptive research design was adopted for this study as it assessed a sample at one specific point in time without trying to make inferences or causal statements; the target population is composed of sixty-six (66) fulltime workers of NPD – COTRACO Ltd in Rwanda who spends their working hours of the day in road construction activities in this company. The sampling technique was census. In this research work, questionnaires, and documentation data collection techniques were used. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS (version 23.0) software. It was first edited, categorized, or coded and computerized. Mean and standard deviation were utilized in descriptive statistics, while regression analysis was employed in inferential statistics to identify and demonstrate the strength of the link between the variables. The findings show that process evaluation relates positively with performance of road construction projects and cannot be concluded that this variable affects the dependent variable since (β=0.063, p˃0.05; p=0.360); There is a positive relationship between formative evaluation and performance of road construction of NPD-COTRACO as results are statistically significant since (β=0.875, p<0.5; p=0.000); and summative evaluation relates positively with performance of road construction of NPD-COTRACO and cannot be concluded that this variable affects the dependent variable since (β=0.59, p˃0.5; p=0.265). The recommendation that construction companies need to have a budget covering the whole of the project as the budget affects the performance of road construction implementation was provided. Keywords: Project Evaluation, Performance of Roads Construction, Nyarutarama Property Developers COTRACO, Rwanda

To Pave or Not to Pave: A Framework for Systematic Decision Making in the Choice of Paving Technologies for Rural Roads

Investment in road infrastructure is an integral part of the development strategy of any country. The challenge for policy makers, road planners, and engineers is to provide roads that meet their functional and structural requirements in a cost-effective way. The spectrum of options ranges from earth to gravel, to low-cost surface treatments, to full paving with asphalt or concrete. The key question is, which roads to pave and which ones not to pave. Standard practice in rural road project evaluation is based on an economic analysis that uses a discounted comparison of the costs and benefits of paving versus nonpaving solutions over the project life cycle. The benefits identified are usually related to travel time and vehicle operating cost savings, and fail to capture important but hard-to-quantify benefits such as climate resilience, dust avoidance, land value improvements, benefits to nonmotorized transport users, and the reliability of the road in the rainy season. This paper presents a paradigm shift and introduces the Systematic PAving DEcision model—SPADE—which considers variables under a multicriteria analysis that affects the paving decision in a systematic and holistic way, while maintaining economic justification.

The accuracy of benefit-cost analyses (BCAs) in transportation: An ex-post evaluation of road projects

Ex-post evaluations of benefit-cost analyses (BCAs) of transportation projects are scarce in the literature. If conducted frequently, they could reveal the extent to which objectives are achieved and may give inputs that can improve the quality of ex-ante BCAs. We first explain the usefulness of ex-post BCA evaluations of transportation projects, depending on which planning phase a project is in. We then perform ex-post BCAs on 27 Norwegian road projects that have been in service for at least 5 years and compare the results with the ex-ante BCAs that were presented to the decision-makers. We use two different measures of aggregating the magnitudes of accuracy; the Mean Percentage Error (MPE) and Mean Absolute Percentage (MAPE). Using MPE, we find that: (1) ex-ante BCAs underestimate the actual net present value (NPV) by 50% on average and, the NPV per dollar invested by a mere 0.14% points on average; (2) the traffic level and traffic growth rates are often underestimated ex-ante, leading to an underestimation of the benefits and; (3) construction costs are underestimated by 5% on average, which is too small to offset the observed underestimation of benefits. By default, MAPE shows higher values of inaccuracies implying that one should not be indifferent as to the measure used. Overall, the Norwegian ex-ante BCAs perform fairly well. We urge that the authorities concerned must improve their traffic forecasts and construction cost estimates to assure that the ex-ante objectives are met. The upkeep of ex-ante data is essential to enable ex-post evaluation which, ceteris paribus, will enhance the transparency and credibility of BCA as an appropriate decision-making tool.

Social costs of the road project in the operation phase

Abstract The project of road is defined by sequences of phases, which create the life cycle of road. At each phase of the life cycle are arisen specified types of costs. At the operation phase arise significant capital costs, which are necessary for the road management, maintenance and repairs of roads. Besides of the capital costs, the social costs are also a part of the operation costs. The social costs are monetizing negative impacts from the road traffic to the road users, society and environment. The capital and social costs of the road operation are a part of the economic evaluation of the road infrastructure projects. Maintenances, repairs and works on roads limit the road operation. Work constraints on the road create so-called work zones. Negative impacts of road zones to road users and society are not part of the economic evaluation of road projects in Slovakia. The main negative impact of work zones to the road users is the loss of travel times. For this reason, was made a procedure for calculating and monetizing travel time costs due to work zones. The main purpose of this procedure is effective planning of road works with the aim of reduction negative impact to the road users. This quantification procedure of travel time costs due to work zones was applied to practical example.

Option Price Model and Evaluation of Time Saving Effect for Emergency Patient of Heat Stroke

Abstract Time saving for emergency patient like as a case of heat stroke is eagerly anticipated especially in recent society of Japan. Though implementation new arterial high-standard road may make a considerable contribution, however in practical management, the way to evaluate in monetary terms such effects those related deeply with human life and health has not been established yet. One possible answer is to put the value of statistical one's life (VSL) into the benefit items, and in nowadays 226 million JPY is recommended by Cabinet Office in Japan nevertheless it has not been justified sufficiently. Therefore in this study, firstly we developed a theoretical model in which one tries to give an account of relationship between the research participants’ age and their WTP for the suggested hypothetical service that has an effect of mortality risk reduction, namely “option”. Actually, WTP is option price itself in this context and perfectly proportional with VSL. Secondly, several types of WTP and VSL are proposed for each generation of the participant. These empirical outcomes show rather consistent with the propositions in theoretical conjecture. Either of WTP of 20s or 30s is the lowest value among generations, in contrast, WTP of over 60 is the firstly or secondly largest value among them nevertheless they might have been retired already and income effect worked not so much. The elderly people seem to be willing to pay more than younger ages to build more safety society. In both viewpoints of theoretical and empirical analysis, WTP and VSL evidently differ among age groups and income groups. We confidently conclude that as the degree of VSL depends heavily on the subject regional circumstances, e.g. economic level, population structure, and so on, sufficient and elaborate preliminary investigation is minimum requirements to road project evaluation.

ROAD AND ROADSIDE FEATURE EXTRACTION USING IMAGERY AND LIDAR DATA FOR TRANSPORTATION OPERATION

Abstract. Transportation agencies require up-to-date, reliable, and feasibly acquired information on road geometry and features within proximity to the roads as input for evaluating and prioritizing new or improvement road projects. The information needed for a robust evaluation of road projects includes road centerline, width, and extent together with the average grade, cross-sections, and obstructions near the travelled way. Remote sensing is equipped with a large collection of data and well-established tools for acquiring the information and extracting aforementioned various road features at various levels and scopes. Even with many remote sensing data and methods available for road extraction, transportation operation requires more than the centerlines. Acquiring information that is spatially coherent at the operational level for the entire road system is challenging and needs multiple data sources to be integrated. In the presented study, we established a framework that used data from multiple sources, including one-foot resolution color infrared orthophotos, airborne LiDAR point clouds, and existing spatially non-accurate ancillary road networks. We were able to extract 90.25% of a total of 23.6 miles of road networks together with estimated road width, average grade along the road, and cross sections at specified intervals. Also, we have extracted buildings and vegetation within a predetermined proximity to the extracted road extent. 90.6% of 107 existing buildings were correctly identified with 31% false detection rate.

Proposed Modifications to the Cost‐Benefit Analysis Decision Criteria for Road Project Evaluation to Improve Decisionmaking

AbstractThe Australian Transport Council (ATC) have identified that the benefit cost ratio (BCR), the net present value (NPV), and first‐year rate of return (FYRR) decision criteria are appropriate inputs to project prioritization, mutual exclusive project selection, and optimal timing, respectively. This article suggests the net benefit investment ratio (NBIR), the incremental net benefit investment ratio (INBIR), and the internal rate of return (IRR) subject to decision criteria incorporating the marginal project as alternatives to those proposed by the ATC. The proposed decision criteria aim to reduce the impact of uncertainty surrounding discount rates and opportunity costs of capital, hence improving the quality of the quantitative inputs provided to decisionmakers.

Materials and energy assessment in Ceequal transport projects

The growing prominence of sustainability assessment and carbon calculators in the transport sector has led to a greater general awareness of the sustainability issues associated with infrastructure projects. Ceequal, the assessment and awards scheme for improving sustainability in civil engineering and public realm projects, is identified as the leading methodology for assessing such projects in the UK. Ceequal evaluates sustainability by asking questions over 12 sections, including material and energy use, which previous research has identified as important topics for transport projects. This paper presents analysis of 24 Ceequal projects which are transport-related. It shows that high scores in the material use category have a high correlation to overall project scores. Conversely scores in the energy usage section appear to show little relation to overall project performance. An evaluation of road projects within those assessed reveal a number of what can be considered core transport topics and other topics that have little impact on the overall Ceequal score. Therefore recommendations are made for the development of Ceequal, including the rationalisation of material and energy question sets. The methodology outlined in this work could also be extended to the remaining ten Ceequal sections to develop a suite of more specific assessment schemes focused on different categories of civil engineering projects.

Evaluation of road projects and programs in developing countries

The paper discusses the economic evaluation of road projects in developing countries as currently practiced in World Bank-supported projects. Evaluation of road decisions is necessary whenever there is a budget constraint. A basic principle of equity—but not the only one—is that those who receive the benefit also pay for it, thus designating the budget constraint. This is illustrated with two examples. It is also argued that a well-organized road sector, good road management, customer input, and private sector participation in finance and service delivery affect benefits and costs, and can increase the efficiency and level of service to customers.

Environmental project evaluation: a fuzzy logic based method

The paper illustrates the potential of fuzzy logic and approximate reasoning in the context of the evaluation of a set of transport projects characterized in terms of multiple environmental factors or impacts. A method involving fragments of imprecise information (conditional propositions, implications), where antecedents are environmental impacts or factors and the consequent is a measure of satisfaction associated with those factors, is illustrated in the context of the evaluation of road projects. Each factor is defined as a fuzzy subset of the set of projects. A simple example is given involving four road projects and six factors (travel-time saved, social impact, flora/fauna impact, noise impact, air quality impact, capital cost).