Evaluating risks in Ho Chi Minh city urban railway project using analytic network process.

Vietnam has two urban railway investment projects, one in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh city. They are key national projects implemented with State capital and Official Development Assistance (ODA) capital of countries such as Japan, China, and Korea. Urban railway projects in Vietnam, in general, and the Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) urban railway project, in particular, are falling behind schedule and having cost overruns. Negative reactions have been expressed from both society and the government. The main reason for the problems is the lack of experience and improper approach to project risk management. Perceptions related to the interaction and mutual influence between risks as well as their effects on the implementation of urban railway construction investment projects in Vietnam have not been modeled and explored in great detail. Therefore, this paper comprehensively seeks to identify and assess the impact of risks on the cost, schedule, and quality of the HCMC urban railway project. In particular, this is a case study of Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien Line 1 railway project. Twenty-seven risk factors affect this railway project, of which (i) seven social risk factors; (ii) seven technical risk factors; (iii) seven economic risk factors, (iv) two environmental risk factors; and (v) four political risk factors. In this analysis, Analytical Network Process (ANP) was applied to assess the priority of these risk factors. The research results showed that the economic risk group had the largest normalization risk priority index (NRPI_e = 0.334), the technical risk group was ranked the second (NRPI_t = 0.276), followed by social, political, and environmental risk groups with an NRPI of 0.182, 0.140, and 0.067, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]