Delivering sustainable transport infrastructure projects (railway) in Nigeria: Frameworks, indicators, method and tools

Abstract

This study presented the issue of railway transportation infrastructure sustainability which involves multi-dimensional view of sustainability criteria such as economy, environment and society with the problem of non-systematic method of assessment in Nigeria. The aim of this study is to ascertain the extent of practice of sustainability in railway transportation infrastructure projects through the frame work, methods, tools and identify infrastructure sustainability priority indicators amongst stakeholders. In this research, weighted sum model technique in multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), was used. This section formulates the mathematical model for computing the sustainability index (SI) using the Weighted Sum Model (WSM) which is structured in three steps. Also employed in the assessment is cognitive/reasoning map decision aid for infrastructure sustainability appraisal. This study also discussed the issue of key performance project indicators for transport infrastructure using sustainability appraisal in infrastructure projects (SUSAIP). Sustainability indicators are discoursed base on regional level(s), for example All-region represents cumulative results from the four regions. The result of the questionnaire based indicators validation by the stakeholders indicates that some indicators can easily be influence due to unexpected changes or regional priorities. Because of non-availability of systematic method of appraisal of sustainability criteria and priority indicators in practice level. This paper proposed gradual exploitation and collaborating decision frameworks for evaluation and mathematical foundation models. This method employed computational analysis in quantitative based decision-making crisp value and sustainability index for railway transport infrastructure projects assessment in Nigeria. Keywords: Cognitive/reasoning map, key performance indicators, Sustainability criteria, sustainability assessment tools, transport infrastructure projects, and weighted sum model.