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The partnership between the public and private sectors has led to a new and innovative way of delivering infrastructure projects that is referred to as public–private partnership (PPP). There are various benefits associated with PPP delivery methods including risk sharing, access to private funding, innovation, and flexibility, among others. Despite the proved benefits, contract conflicts and disputes are very common in PPP projects. While previous research studies examined the risks and the potential causes of conflicts in PPP projects, little-to-no research efforts were directed to study and model the interconnectivities between the different causes of conflicts in PPP agreements. To this end, the aim of this paper is to fill the gap in knowledge by providing a deeper understanding of the causalities or relationships between the different factors that cause disputes in PPP projects in the United States. The authors used a comprehensive analytical approach that involved three primary steps. First, 37 PPP case studies of infrastructure and construction projects were collected and analyzed using manual content analysis. Second, social network analysis was conducted to study the interdependencies between the different causal factors leading to disputes in PPP in general and in relation to Execution, Investment and Operation, and Third-Party Claims, in particular. Third, association rule analysis was conducted to identify key associations between the different causal factors that may trigger the three different types of PPP disputes. The findings showed that the key causes of disputes in PPP projects are related to (1) legal and regulatory, (2) payment and financial, and (3) poor management. While Execution-related disputes were found to be caused by complex interactions of causal factors, dispute causation of Investment and Operation–related and Third-Party Claims–related disputes seemed to be less simplistic. As such, the outcomes of this paper highlighted the important aspects required to avoid dispute occurrence in PPP projects. Ultimately, this paper contributes to the body of knowledge by providing directions for scholars and practitioners toward the aspects and interdependencies that require optimization and/or thorough consideration to avoid dispute occurrence and subsequently ensure successful implementation of PPPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current quantitative methods to evaluate pavement conditions in the United States are most commonly focused on construction acceptance using the International Roughness Index (IRI). However, from an asset management perspective, qualitative visual inspection techniques are the most prevalent. Modern vehicles with factory-equipped sensors drive these roadways daily and can passively assess the condition of infrastructure at an accuracy level somewhere between qualitative assessment and rigorous construction acceptance techniques. This paper compares crowdsourced ride quality data with an industry standard inertial profiler on a 7-mile bi-directional construction zone. A linear correlation was performed on 14 miles of I-65 that resulted in an R2 of 0.7 and a p-value of <0.001, but with a modest fixed offset bias. The scalability of these techniques is illustrated with graphics characterizing IRI values obtained from 730,000 crowdsourced data segments over 5,800 miles of I-80 in April of 2022 and October 2022. This paper looks at the use of standard original equipment manufacturer (OEM) on-board sensor data from production vehicles to assess approximately 100 miles of roadway pavements before, during, and after construction. The completed construction projects observed IRI improvements of 10 in/mi to 100 in/mi. These results suggest that it is now possible to monitor pavement ride quality at a system level, even with a small proportion of connected vehicles (CV) providing roughness data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction project owners worldwide require compliance with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) green building rating system as a means to meet sustainability goals. Despite its popularity, the LEED certification process can still be cumbersome for project teams without clear guidance. This study focuses on a school district in the United States committed to certifying its high volume of new schools. The analysis includes understanding the efficacy of the district's LEED requirements by comparing them to the final LEED scorecards of 16 completed projects. The results indicate an incompatibility between the owner's required LEED credit targets and the actual outcomes, confirming that simply requiring LEED certification is insufficient to reach specific sustainability goals. The significance of this study is the identification of four strategies that owners with a high volume of construction projects can use to successfully facilitate and streamline the LEED certification process: (a) develop a targeted LEED scorecard, (b) create LEED documentation templates, (c) integrate LEED into specifications, and (d) align design guidelines with LEED goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted many industries on a global scale. Expectedly, the construction industry was not left out as non-essential construction was halted, strict health and safety protocols were introduced, and businesses were disrupted. New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic at its onset in the United States, and the pandemic had different impacts on workers based on their work location and role. This study utilized a survey including twenty-five statements to explore the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry in New York State, analyzing its effects on sixty-one construction industry professionals, their projects, and firms, also considering their work location and role in the construction process. The most severe impacts were on construction schedules and in-person meetings. Those who worked in New York City had more difficulty complying with the increased health and safety regulations than those who worked outside the city. Those categorized as builders indicated significantly more contract performance issues. Furthermore, a set of recommendations were highlighted to strengthen the industry's response to future similar disruptions. This study is significant in helping researchers and businesses build more resilient operations to address current and future pandemic-related challenges facing the construction industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction planning and control are crucial for project success. The last planner system (LPS) presents a proactive approach to plan and control production, designed to increase reliability and enhance the make-ready process. Several metrics guide the planning process at the macro level (master and phase scheduling) and the micro level (lookahead and weekly work planning). However, LPS still lacks a mathematical model that can systematically and continuously analyze such metrics, especially to forecast project performance. Moreover, there are no studies on the effect of the fluctuations of lookahead-planning LPS metrics on the metrics at the weekly work plan level. This research, therefore, proposed a new mathematical model using singularity functions, which are types of range-based expressions that track the different paths that each task can follow, from lookahead planning to weekly work planning, and evaluate LPS metrics. To assess project performance, the concept of momentum was introduced as the rate of change in metrics from week to week. Momentum was applied to the Tasks Made Ready (TMR) metric to predict the Percent Plan Complete (PPC). Through machine learning models, results show that momentum can predict PPC with over 93% correlation between actual and predicted PPC values. Data from actual construction execution in the United States were used to validate the proposed model. The contribution of this research lies in (1) conceiving a mathematical model method for project control; and (2) introducing the concept of momentum, which takes the rate of change of any metric into account, incorporated into the LPS for more reliable planning. The methodology proposed in this study can help industry better plan its projects and leverage the concept of momentum to better predict PPC, which is essential for every planning and control process in construction projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative scheduling (CS) and related practices impact the performance of construction projects which can be measured by key performance indicators (KPIs). However, little is known about which of these practices are implemented and how their combined implementation might impact KPIs. The objectives of this research are to identify perceptions of CS practices that drive project performance, define CS practices used by industry that impact KPIs, and establish practices that are more commonly implemented and have a higher potential to positively impact KPIs. The research team conducted a nationwide survey in the United States and obtained 241 usable responses. Utilizing an information theory approach to measure the uncertainty of implementation and impact of each practice, the research built a set of Chow–Liu tree models to determine the most efficient sequence of actions to improve CS. Results indicate that meeting owners' expectation throughout the life-cycle of the project from design through construction and commissioning, using the schedule to support a strong project culture, and an effective communication plan were the top CS levers for overall KPI improvement. An innovative method was developed to help construction project managers discover the value of each CS practice, the relation between CS practices, and CS practices' influence to project KPIs so that managers can improve KPIs efficiently by prioritizing their CS practices according to their own project needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many organizations, capital construction projects fail at an alarming rate despite the adoption and application of sophisticated project management techniques and tools. Utility organizations that lack effective strategies to deliver construction projects on-budget and on-schedule are at a high risk of experiencing project failure. Grounded in the contingency theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies successful project executives in utility organizations use to deliver construction projects on-budget and on schedule. The participants comprised 3 project executives from 3 utility organizations located in the northeastern United States who implemented strategies to complete construction projects on-budget and on-schedule. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, the organizations’ project documents, and the organizations’ websites. The following themes emerged from the analysis of research data: develop a detailed project scope, apply relevant project management tools, customize project management processes and procedures, and capture knowledge and share lessons learned. A key recommendation is that project executives develop a robust format or template for the project scope development before construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without a building permit, a construction project cannot be legally implemented. For this, the building project must undergo a review process by the competent authority. As the number of building projects to be inspected increases, building authorities are faced with ever greater challenges, due to the lack of adequate personnel to manage the inefficient, labor extensive, and lengthy building permit process. In-depth scientific studies of the existing building permit processes are missing so far. This paper introduces a proposed framework that aims to investigate and compare the building permit processes in Germany and in the United States of America (USA). Among other things, the processes are studied for both by-right and non-by-right cases. In doing so, the data are based on a collected empirical study in the form of qualitative expert interviews. The findings of the comparison provide a detailed description and illustration of the current building permit processes, as well as the lessons learned from both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years after the downfall of the Soviet-led communist bloc, the United States-led liberal international order is seen as coming to an end. Policymakers have converged on the need to safeguard the "rules-based order" across the newly coined "Indo-Pacific" region. However, policy and scholarly debates lack clarity about what exactly is to be preserved, and why the terms of the "rules-based order" and the "Indo-Pacific" have rapidly found their way into policy debates despite their contested meaning. Analyzing developments in regional multilateralism, we find that mainstream discourses purport static conceptions of order, which are often conflated with United States-centered trans-Pacific alliance relationships. The ensuing problem of order stems in large part from the fact that multilateral projects for building alternate orders, undertaken since the early 1990s, have remained far below their potential. We conclude that emerging forms of multilateral cooperation across the enlarged "Indo-Pacific" region have partially filled this void. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry is hazardous, which requires careful consideration of occupational health and safety measures. Among various strategies that are proposed to enhance construction safety, Lean construction practices were widely implied and proved to be effective. However, the link between Lean implementation and construction safety has not been completely studied yet in previous research in terms of psychological safety context. This study implies that psychological safety is of utmost importance in terms of explaining the association between Lean and safety. Lean implementation elements such as respect for people, trust, leadership, and continuous improvement positively affect employees' psychological safety. In this context, semi-structured interviews and a survey were conducted with employees working in U.S. construction companies. The interviews provided that the majority of the construction employees do not feel psychologically safe at their workplaces either in traditional or Lean construction projects due to a number of reasons such as heavy workload, and deadline pressures. However, it was found that construction workers feel safer psychologically in Lean construction projects compared to traditional projects. According to the interview results and literature review, a conceptual model was proposed. Therefore, this study can contribute to the research area of psychological safety in the construction industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partnering has enabled state departments of transportation (DOTs) and aviation construction projects to significantly reduce claims and improve project schedules. Today there is a wide body of empirical evidence that demonstrates partnering benefits outweigh the resources devoted to its implementation. Despite such outstanding outcomes, collaborative partnering is still new, misunderstood, underutilized, and evolving for airport construction projects that entail greater complexity and increased risks due to a high number of stakeholders and additional sector-specific regulations. The objectives of this study are to describe the state-of-practice regarding partnering in the aviation construction industry and offer insights about its use. A comprehensive survey of industry professionals representing DOTs, airports, and others involved in construction aviation projects in the United States helps capture partnering trends across the industry. Findings show that participants with experience in partnered-aviation construction projects perceive higher improvement of safety and reduced claims offering greater rewards. However, these projects are operating as late adopters of partnering with many at the initial stages of implementation. The main contribution of the paper to the body of knowledge is that partnering is suitable for airport projects regardless of the project delivery method followed, budget size, or partnering intensity levels. Those with greater experience with partnering under design-bid-build project delivery methods are more likely to perceive higher improvements. Furthermore, it increases trust and strengthens the relationships between organizations. The findings are significant as they bring attention to team integration practices for improved outcomes via the underutilized partnering in an industry niche where stakeholder and risk management are key to project success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing inspiration from popular efforts to connect a wide array of political struggles, this symposium examines the ways that racial‐colonial politics unfold through nature and environmental practices linking past, present, and future across the United States and Canada. By way of introduction, we ask: What does it mean to do political ecologies of race in Canada and the United States? For us the response cannot be additive—merely grafting attention to racial/colonial politics onto established scholarly conventions. Instead, we aim for a deeper analysis that challenges and enlivens the field of political ecology. This introduction highlights what is at stake, and identifies the ways that the contributors' research pushes the field. Ultimately, we argue that political ecologies of race can help reinvigorate intellectual projects and build liveable futures by recognising and supporting the connections between ongoing struggles. We hope this symposium contributes to the task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes construction productivity based on the construction duration per floor and per gross area over 20 years (1996-2015) and compares the results among the United States, United Kingdom, South Korea, and Japan, which have similar sizes of total construction investment and market risk. Although construction labor productivity is widely used to analyze and compare construction productivity among countries, it does not consider the changed construction duration caused by levels of investment and technology. Therefore, construction duration per floor and gross area was selected analyze and compare construction productivity in this paper. Regular and non-modular buildings with a total of five or more floors and a basement are collected during the analysis period (1996-2015). The total number of collected buildings is 800 and it includes buildings in the United States (194), the United Kingdom (186), South Korea (322) and Japan (98). Construction duration, increase rate and standard deviation are then compared between each country. Finally, factors that influence construction duration are derived and additionally considered to explain and adjust the trends and changes of construction productivity related to construction duration in the four countries. The productivity of the United States is the highest, but the difference between it and other countries decreases steadily because the increase rate of the construction duration in the United stated is larger than those of other countries. Then, the factors influencing the construction duration are derived as a learning effect by the number of ground floors and gross area, as well as the rate of constructed buildings with a first basement floor for efficient productivity management. The rate of the first basement floor influences both the construction duration per floor and per gross area. This study contributes to the field by explaining the productivity change based on the construction duration and proposing the key management point of the productivity by deriving the influence factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results presented are part of a larger mixed-mode study on supplier quality practices focusing on the cross-analysis of interviews, focus groups, and a questionnaire, which collected actual data about timing, costs, practices, and non-conformances associated with purchase orders (POs) from Engineering Procure and Construct (EPC) projects for four material types considered relevant to projects built by EPC contractors based in the United States. The present discussion specifically focuses on the analysis of the non-parametric dataset obtained from the POs to investigate a subset of companies labelled as highly effective companies (HECs). This contribution is unique as it used a mixed-mode approach to collect data beyond construction sites and investigate the product/supplier side of construction processes to advance knowledge of how materials can be sent to construction project sites free of defects and rework and indicates practices that contribute to this goal. When compared to other companies in the dataset, HECs engage in more hours of observation in suppliers' facilities, communicate more often with suppliers, put more effort and time in the planning stages of the project, use more practices related to supplier quality surveillance and supplier quality management, and find non-conformances earlier in the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the possible supply chain problem over the nuclear industry. It cites that in 1960, the initial growth of nuclear energy gives encouragements to the manufacturers to supply parts for a large-scale construction projects. However, in the late 1970's, the nuclear reactors slowed in parts of the world and the industrial support base reduced. Today, the increase in demand for nuclear reactors has worsened the nuclear supply chain. Only Japan Steel Works Ltd. can now make the central component of any reactor while the U.S. utilities have expressed that they will not receive this critical part in time. The demand for large reactor pressure vessels is expected to be more severe and on other parts such as coolant pumps, steam pressurizers, and diesel generators.

In recent years, many public and private sector owners have started to require a building information modeling (BIM) component in new construction projects. Although there has been a significant increase in industry-wide acceptance of BIM, it is still not a standard practice in the educational facility sector. This research aimed at exploring the use of BIM in educational facility projects by the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) disciplines. A survey that investigated BIM adoption at the company level, BIM implementation in projects, benefits of using BIM, and obstacles to using BIM was distributed to architects, site engineers, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, and contractors across the United States. The survey results showed that a majority of the respondents from all five disciplines used BIM. BIM was most commonly used for 3D visualization, automation of documentation, and clash detection. The most important benefits of BIM included better marketing and clearer understanding of projects which is crucial for clients such as school students, teachers, and principals. Lack of expertise and need for training seemed to be main obstacles to BIM use. The research contributes to the body of knowledge by showing prevalence of BIM use on educational facility projects and indicating how BIM could help improve collaborative knowledge sharing among designers, contractors, and clients, resulting in better quality educational buildings. These research findings can be used to assist AEC companies that are interested in implementing BIM in the educational facility projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanotechnology, defined as the science of very small matter called nanomaterial, comprises the study of chemical and physical properties of particles which are structured in sizes ranging from 1 to 100 nm. At this size range, nanomaterial exhibits superior chemical and physical characteristics as compared to those displayed while existing in normal size. To date, multiple nanotechnology research centers within the United States are investigating the potential use of different types of nanoparticles as titanium dioxide (TiO2) in the construction industry to attain superior characteristics of building materials, improve their rating as environmentally friendly material, and improve the overall LEED rating of construction projects. The major impediments to the widespread implementation of nanotechnology include high nanomaterial cost, lack of industrial experience, and absence of standard specifications for building materials incorporating nanoparticles. This research article presents a research effort performed to improve the ability of construction material to attain self-cleaning properties through the incorporation of TiO2 particles in the concrete surface layers. Nanosized TiO2 particles were able to dissolve induced stains in the presence of sunlight. This chemical reaction, known as photocatalysis, can be successfully used in improving the environmental compliance of construction projects at the US market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the state of practice used in the value for money (VfM) analysis of highway projects in the United States. Based on direct contact with public transportation agencies and the search of project websites, seven VfM studies were selected for a comparative analysis. The paper finds that the choice of public sector comparator (PSC) model varied from one study to another, which is driven by agency experience. The risks transferred from employing the public-private partnership (P3) model are closely related to the choice of repayment schemes. Discount rates used in practice are similar across studies despite wide-ranging debates over appropriate rates in the literature. VfM studies show the advantages of agency municipal bonds are reduced when favorable borrowing rates are available to private partners. The paper lastly examines reasons why agencies chose not to deliver projects as P3s based on VfM studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the obstacles faced by building contractors and tips to better implement the Section 3 provision of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Act in the U.S. He mentions that small businesses could not compete on HUD projects for work, but owners have trouble with paperwork such as invoicing and bid documents. He states that public work is more complicated to administer and bid, and the complications increase the costs of contractors.

The article focuses on the Scioto Greenways development project of the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation in Ohio. It states that the first step of creation of the Scioto Greenways was to let the water flow freely, which was started with demolition of the Main Street Dam, and mentions that the project reconnected downtown to the Scioto River with an integrated system of parks, and boulevards. It notes that the project comprised river restoration, and greenways construction.

Efficiency gains in public-private partnerships (PPP) derive from risk transfer and the bundling of different tasks. We study the factors that explain bundling in single contracts. We focus on the choice between integrating operational tasks alone or construction tasks alone, versus vertically integrating both operational and construction tasks. We analyze a new data set that includes 553 PPPs that were concluded in the United States. We find evidence that some financial variables play a role in bundling decisions. In addition, market size and the type of economic sectors involved, are also important drivers of contract choice and bundling decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-private partnerships (P3s) are becoming a prevalent solution to address the growing infrastructure needs across the United States. Proponents of P3s believe that they enable the private sector to implement more lifecycle-design innovations, or design changes that benefit long-term project performance. While studies have explored innovation in highway P3s, to date none have explored the effect of contract timing on the ability to realize lifecycle-design innovations. This study addresses this gap by analyzing three design-build-finance operate-maintain (DBFOM) P3s to explore the influence of contract timing on the private sector's ability to realize lifecycle-design innovations. Using innovation theory as a framework to measure the magnitude of lifecycle-design changes, the research explored contract timing of private involvement and analyzed whether this timing enabled or inhibited the ability of the project team to realize the promise of lifecycle innovations. Furthermore, through the identified examples, a conceptual model illustrates how the private sector's ability to perform more radical lifecycle-design innovations increases the earlier the partner is brought into a project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]