Managing the uncertainty in time scheduling of public construction works in Greece

The construction of public works in Greece usually faces in practice significant deviations from its time scheduling. The aim of this paper is to study and evaluate the possibilities of managing these uncertainties by applying a probabilistic approach mainly based on the method of Monte Carlo simulation. State-of-the-art software was used allowing a better integration of different sources of uncertainty into the time scheduling. The software was applied in an already constructed work and the results were compared with real recorded data. The application demonstrated the strong performance of the Monte Carlo Method and its ability to deal efficiently with uncertainty. The divergence between the results of the Monte Carlo Method and the real data disclosed some structural weaknesses of the ruling framework of public works in Greece that extent the uncertainties. Finally, suggestions are discussed for institutional changes that will assist in a more efficient and accurate time scheduling of the Greek public works.