Causes of delay on highway construction projects in Thailand

Abstract

Delay in construction project is an important issue in construction management. This is because delay will cause negative impacts on both the owner and the contractor. For owner, it will lead to the late opening of new road. For contractor, it will cause extra operating cost. In this paper, therefore, the causes of delay in road construction projects are researched. This paper studied a list of road construction delay causes gathered from literature having different countries. Internationally, twenty-six factors that might cause delays of road construction projects are identified in this research. Among 26 factors, considering in Thailand, eight key factors are typically found as the cause of delays in road construction projects. These 8 factors are then prioritized to identify the most important causes of delays in road construction projects in Thailand. A questionnaire and personal interviews through project engineer have formed the basis of this paper. The study indicates that the 5 top factors affecting road construction delays are: incomplete drawings, lack of equipment efficiency or financial status of contractors, delay in relocating existing infrastructure structures, less of project engineer experiences, and delay in relieving environmental impact, respectively