Fuzzy Assessment of Factors Influencing Quality Level of Highway Projects

摘要

A construction project such as highway comprises two distinct phases: preconstruction and construction. During these phases several factors are particularly noteworthy because of their significant impacts on the quality. As a result, the construction projects may be exposed to quality shortfalls. This paper aims at identifying the factors that may affect the quality of highway infrastructure projects in Egypt and determining their effectiveness degree through the application of fuzzy triangular approach. Using a detailed literature review, 39 factors have been identified to have an effect on the quality of the highway projects. A Pareto analysis shows that the first thirty factors contribute 80.249% of the weight of all the factors. The analysis of the collected questionnaires as perceived by the contracting engineers using the fuzzy approach reveals that availability of experienced staff in the owner's and contractor's teams during the project execution, asphalt quality and type used in the construction process, availability of the specified materials quality, pavement is not designed according to regional conditions (e.g. soil type -temperature - traffic volume) and design errors arising from inadequate engineer assumptions and inaccurate data are the major causal factors affecting the quality of the highway construction projects in Egypt.