Overruns in Transport Infrastructure Projects: A View from the Inside Out

Cost and schedule overruns are endemic features of transport infrastructure projects. Despite the considerable amount of research within the field of transport and planning in the past 30 years, limited progress has been made to improving the performance of projects. We contend that this will continue to be an issue as long as research efforts focus on the ‘outside view’ with emphasis being placed upon strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias. Understanding ‘why’ and ‘how’ projects overrun, particularly from both outside’ and ‘inside’ perspectives, is pivotal to reducing their impact and occurrence. Thus, in conjunction with the transport and planning literature, reference to cost overrun studies undertaken within the field of construction and engineering are examined, particularly with reference to the points for determining the pre and post contract award stages as they are intimately connected. The objective of this paper is to provide policy makers, industry, voluntary organizations and the public at large with an ameliorated understanding about time and cost overrun phenomenon. Suggestions to mitigate overruns based upon recent process and technological innovations are identified and discussed

Cost Overrun at the Norwegian Continental Shelf: The Element of Surprise

We examine drivers of cost overruns in Norwegian development projects in the oil and gas sector. The multivariate longitudinal econometric analysis employs a unique and detailed dataset consisting of 80 different projects between 2000 and 2015. Among the significant results, we find that the unexpected change in economic activity has a positive effect on the overruns; there is a considerable positive momentum in the transitional cost overruns; more experienced operators tend to incur less overruns; finally, that the size of the investment of the projects has a positive impact on the overruns. Further, we find evidence that the current economic activity matters to an extent, but it is the unexpected change in activity that is the pivotal factor