Development of an integrated hybrid risk assessment system for railway construction projects

Railway infrastructure is vulnerable to a wide range of uncertainties resulting from organizational, financial, environmental, and technological concerns that can have a substantial impact on project outcomes. Risk assessment and management are essential for the complex nature of the railway system, comprising interconnected subsystems like rolling stock and infrastructure. It’s critical to comprehend the principles of risk assessment and put them into practice while implementing railway construction projects. In this regard, adoption of the ‘Risk Based-Decision Support Systems’ are expected to enhance railway system management. In this respect, this study enriches the decision-making process with 5 main criterion and 21 indicators, which helps to evaluate the risk level of a construction project using a hybrid model by using AHP-Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation and Monte-Carlo Method. Furthermore, the evaluation method was tested for a candidate railway project. To the best of our knowledge, this integrated approach has not been used to assess risks associated with railway construction projects and serve as the cornerstone for well-informed risk decision-making. This study has filled this gap by utilizing an integrated risk assessment method in conjunction with a thorough literature assessment of risk evaluation models and evaluation criterias in the field of construction risk management.