Integrated Framework for Quantifying and Predicting Weather-Related Highway Construction Delays
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136, Issue 11
Abstract
Constant exposure to the environment makes highway construction highly dependent on weather. However, highway construction contracts are often unclear about the potential influence of weather-related delays on highway construction project schedules. There is a need to discourage litigation arising from weather-related delays by including in contracts a reasonable number of nonwork days as a consequence of adverse weather and providing an equitable criteria for the course of action when the predictions in the contracts turn out to be inaccurate. To address this need, an integrated framework consisting of the following two key components is proposed: (1) identification of attributes of weather that cause construction delays and (2) generation of synthetic weather sequences using a stochastic weather generator to quantify and provide probabilistic forecasts of weather threshold values. The utility of this framework is demonstrated through its application to construction work on a project in Texas. The use of probabilistic forecast of construction delay attributes provided by a semiparametric weather generator in this research is an example of interdisciplinary study to help address this problem. The result of the research is better decision support for agencies who wish to author contracts that more equitably allow for the influence of weather during construction.
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Acknowledgments
The writers wish to thank all of the interview participants who contributed their time and valuable experience to this work. Without their willingness to participate, this work would not have been possible. This material is based upon work supported by the Federal Highway Administration, Central Federal Land Highway Division. Partial support of the first and fourth writers from National Science Foundation’s Biocomplexity in the Environment Program Grant No. NSFBE-0410348 is thankfully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136 • Issue 11 • November 2010
Pages: 1160 - 1168
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Dec 9, 2008
Accepted: Jan 27, 2010
Published online: Jan 29, 2010
Published in print: Nov 2010
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