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The complexity and growing scale of infrastructure projects creates more and more potential risks in terms of techniques and management. In this case, it is a greater challenge for infrastructure projects to achieve the expected schedule, cost, quality, and the goals of safety, health, and environmental protection smoothly. In order to determine the budget, schedule, and objectives of infrastructure projects in a better practical manner and to improve the reasonable and complete risk sharing between public and private sectors at the time of calling for tenders and making contracts, the HM Treasury of the U.K. introduced the concept of optimism bias (OB) in 2003 to take advanced necessary management measures to monitor high risk projects. Since then, OB has become an indispensable benchmark for the U.K. government to determine its promotion patterns, objectives, and risk management strategies when planning infrastructure projects. On the other hand, the establishment of domestic infrastructure project schedules and costs in Taiwan has neither practical measures of review nor mechanism of risk assessment for a long time. Therefore, this study is aimed at discussing and analyzing the possibility of establishing a domestic OB scheme based on the examples of the U.K. system and infrastructure engineering projects. The so-called OB Pre concept in the U.K. does not exist here. Nevertheless, it is possible and meaningful for the concept of OB Post to be included in domestic budget establishment and procurement scheme. In addition to adopting the same methods as the UK, The competent authority is suggested to compare the balance to the award of contract and the balance to the cost. Moreover, it may establish a risk register for projects to discover the contribution of risks to OB. On the other hand, it is advised to implement the same scheme of “OGC Gateway Review” as the U.K. to serve as an important means of risk management, schedule improvement, and budget establishment in the future.
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