As part of the NERC Environmental Risk to Infrastructure Innovation Programme, this project looked at the implications of anticipated weather delay in construction activity to project planning efficiency. Unforeseen weather conditions commonly impact construction productivity, causing significant project delays and economic losses for both contractors and clients. However different construction activities demonstrate different levels of sensitivity to weather variables, making the analysis of interaction between weather and construction productivity challenging. With over £300 billion committed by UK government on an upgraded infrastructure system by 2021, delay in delivery of these projects is likely to have a significant economic impact at a national level. Missing the timely exploitation of new infrastructure can harm a country’s economic growth and the financial stability of multiple stakeholders.
The project aim was to further develop methods that account for the impact of weather on construction project duration. The objective was to develop a web-based scheduling tool using climatology to inform the likely delay of specific combinations of weather events on standard construction activities.
Lead Organisation: University of Reading
Partners: Costain Ltd, CIRIA
University of Reading PI: Dr Stefán Thor Smith
University of Reading Co-PI: Dr Pablo Ballesteros Perez (now at University Politecnica De Valencia)
Research Assistant: Mr P. Cooke
Start and End Date: November 2017 – October 2018