Development of Neural Network Models for Prediction of Highway Construction Cost and Project Duration
Asadullah Attal · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · 2010
Early understanding of construction cost and time represents a critical factor of a feasibility study in the early design phase of a project.All parties involved in the construction of a project; owners, contractors, and services companies are in need of reliable information about the cost and time in the early stages of the project.Therefore, this research work attempts to develop a consistent model of forecasting early design construction cost of highway and the project"s duration.A wide review of the literature of the cost and project duration determined the significance of reliable methods to predict construction cost and project"s duration.At this time, researchers suffer lack of information in the early phases of project to identify and analyze parameters and their relationship related to duration of projects.However, there have been numerous attempts to develop improved models for construction cost prediction of highway based on different techniques.This research aims to develop construction cost and duration prediction models of highway based on statistical analysis.Consequently, the statistical techniques used in this research work represent Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and step wise regression analysis to identify the influential parameters and forecast the early design phase of highway construction cost and duration.The input data used to develop the mathematical I would like to take this opportunity to give sincerely appreciation to all the people who helped and supported me to accomplish the graduate program and complete this master thesis.Without their assistance and support, my thesis could not have been accomplished.First, I would like to give great gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Mehmet Tatari for advising my thesis with his outstanding knowledge and countless time.His working approach and innovative ideas in research has been an immense guidance to me.