Factors Influencing the Duration of Road Construction Projects in Sri Lanka

This study attempts to reveal the factors influencing the duration of road construction projects in Sri Lanka, and to identify how delays can be mitigated. The emphasis here is limited to study the Contractor's point of view. The main concern of the study is to identify the nature of the population (Road projects in Sri Lanka) using Statistical Inference. The other focusing areas are to identify Main Causes of Delay & Delay Diversification, and Delay Mitigation. This study defines the Percentage Delay parameter and the Relative Significance Index (RSI) model, which are the new concepts introduced by the author this study. The preliminary data for this research have been collected through a literature review and a questionnaire survey targeted at local contractors of Road Construction. The collected data yields a high reliability coefficient, which is 90%. This study reveals that the local road construction projects experience 56 % - 88 % of average time overrun compared to the original (planned) project duration. The findings further illustrate that the financial problems of the Owner as well as of the Contractor, is the most influencing factor causing delays in road construction projects in Sri Lanka.