Prioritization of Delay Causes in Rural Road Construction Projects

Delays are a common and integral part of construction projects, despite their undesirable impact on costs. Several studies in the existing body of knowledge have already advocated different strategies to minimize project delays, abandonment, and cost overruns. However, existing studies have predominantly focused on urban projects, thereby depriving us of knowledge of rural projects despite their peculiarities. Therefore, the overarching aim of this study is to identify and prioritize the causes of delays in rural road construction projects in Iran, and to investigate the relationships among them using a hybrid DEMATEL-ANP decision-making framework. According to the results, "financial problems" have the most interactions with other indicators, while "inflation" is identified as the factor with the most significant influence on other indicators. Furthermore, results depict that "lack of credits" is the most effective and influential leading cause of delays in rural road construction projects. It was also indicated that initially anticipated project funds are much lower than the actual costs, due to inflation in Iran. Results obtained through can aid the recognition of the most prevalent causes of rural projects, while still accounting for the peculiarities of such projects, so that project owners can improve the robustness of planning for future projects