Review of risk assessment models for highway construction projects

Abstract

Effective risk assessment procedure enhances performance on construction projects, thus this review is aimed at evaluating existing risk assessment models for construction projects. Various risk management standards, risk assessment models and risk management maturity models were identified and reviewed. Risk assessment models were classified into two: one dimensional risk assessment models and two dimensional risk assessment models to carefully extract the capabilities and limitations of the individual models. The study discovered that current one dimensional modelling approach assessed project risk consequence based on project risk events only, and do not estimate magnitude of individual risk factors. However, two dimensional models combined project risk events with different influencing factors to assess project risk consequence but attributes of organisational risk management considered are grossly inadequate. Their techniques are also unsystematic. Consequently, we concluded that further improvement on risk assessment modelling is required. We suggest the development of two dimensional risk modelling approach that would adopt ‘RM3’ method to integrate organisational risk management capability attributes with probability –severity measures of project risk events. The approach will identify areas of weakness and strength of the stakeholders on projects and this will enhance decision on risk response planning.