Cost Overrun and Impact Assessment of Addis Ababa’s Light Rail Transit Construction Project

No Thumbnail Available

Date

2014-09-26

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Transportation is the back bone of success in economic activities, it is necessary that a mass transit system like rail systems be constructed for efficient transportation of commuters. As a result of the growing emphasis on environmentally “clean” alternatives to private vehicles, transport ministries and public transport companies have been concentrating more on the expansion or development of transport systems that combine urban, suburban and regional transport, in which light rail systems linked to subway systems and major railways form a cohesive network (ILO, 1994). To facilitate rapid change and development the Ethiopian national urban transport policy (ENUTP) requires ensuring adequate efficient and high quality transport infrastructure to guarantee efficient mobility of goods and people .Although the proposed ENUTP of goods and people seeks to achieve these goals there are challenges which slow it down the most adequate being inadequate infrastructure in the current network arising from certain constraints. (Yetenayet, 2012) To alleviate this problem Ethiopia in its GTP (Growth and Transformation Plan) plans to construct more than 2395 Km standard gauge railway by Phase-one. As part of this phase – one plan, Ethiopia is constructing a Metropolitan electric railway in Addis Ababa which has a total length of 34.25 km (North-South line 16.9 km and East-West line 17.35 km) the two lines (North-South and East-West) use common track of about 2.7 km. and is designed to fit for elevated, at grade and below grade transportation and access. It has a high carrying capacity of 15,000 PPH (passengers per hour). (ERC,2014) The construction cost management of such a large project is very demanding and the construction cost of light rail transit project is relatively high in comparison road projects. Therefore the main purpose of this research is to assess the construction cost management practices being conducted in Addis Ababa’s light rail transit project with the aim of identifying the presence and cause of cost overrun in the project and discuss mitigation measures which can be implemented in future railway projects.

Description

Keywords

Citation