Qualitative Evaluation Of Transportation Construction Related Social Costs And Their Impacts On The Local Community

Abstract

Although construction is valuable after completion, it can cause many disturbances throughout the duration of the project. These negative impacts, such as economic losses and annoyances, which face the community surrounding a construction project, are referred to as social costs. They are the inconveniences that confront the general public and take many forms such as traffic delays and congestion, decreased revenue, increased accidents, and air and noise pollution. Social costs negatively affect the surrounding environment and everyday quality of life. Social costs are often not incorporated into construction design, planning or budgets. This can be attributed to the complexity of quantifying above inconveniences and the fact that most social costs do not affect the contractual parties, i.e. the project owner and the contractor. Instead, the community endures the negative impacts of construction. To change the mindset of both owners and contractors and to provide a safe construction zone with minimal inconveniences, it is imperative to understand the public's opinion of these costs. By use of surveys, this research evaluates the impacts of construction on the community, both local businesses and residents. With a better knowledge and understanding of social cost impacts it is possible to reduce inconveniences and nuisances due to construction operations. This thesis concludes that the construction related social costs businesses incur include customer decline and financial loss whereas residents find traffic delays and congestions to be more of an intrusive inconvenience.