Risk-based Protocol for the Inspection of Transportation Construction Projects

摘要

In the last decade, state departments of transportation (DOTs) in the U.S. haveexperienced an increase in their construction projects, while the level of their in-houseinspection staff and resources has either remained the same or declined. In response tothis challenge, some states have adopted strategies to deal with the situation, such asoutsourcing the inspection of construction activities and using quality control andquality assurance certification programs. Previous studies have found that one strategythat may reduce the inspection workload is prioritizing construction activities forinspection. However, reducing the number of inspections also has its risks, such asfunctional failures and reduced design life. Thus, available inspection resources shouldbe allocated to the activities with significant risk consequences if inspection of them isreduced. The objective of this paper is to develop a risk-based inspection protocol tofacilitate efficient allocation of available inspection resources to minimize the risksassociated with reduced inspection. First, the risk consequences associated withreduced inspection are identified for various construction activities linked totransportation projects. These risk consequences include short and long-term functionalfailures, reduced design life, reduced safety, and increased maintenance cost. Based ondata collected from 23 state DOTs, 58 engineers and inspectors from the IndianaDepartment of Transportation (INDOT), and 20 inspection consultants in the Midwest,the subjective perceived probabilities associated with the occurrence of each riskconsequence are encoded using fuzzy analysis, from which the risk impacts due toreduced inspection are obtained. The construction activities subsequently areprioritized based on the risk impacts associated with reduced inspection into fivepriority levels: high, medium-high, medium, medium-low, and low. The greater therisk impacts are due to reduced inspection, the higher the priority would be forinspection of that activity. Thus, the proposed protocol could be used for resourceallocation based on the risk impacts. The proposed list of prioritized constructionactivities could assist project and program managers in better allocating their limitedinspection resources while reducing the risks due to reduced inspection.