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Scheduling linear repetitive construction projects, such as highways and pipelines, poses unique challenges due to maintaining crew work continuity. An efficient method is presented, developed to accelerate the delivery of this class of projects so as to meet a specified deadline with least associated cost. The method is simple and ensures crew work continuity. An iterative approach is employed, where, in each iteration, the project schedule is analysed and an activity is identified as the controlling activity. A controlling activity is an activity that if accelerated, would reduce project duration at least additional cost. Upon its identification, the method selects an expediting strategy that would reduce project duration, and the project is rescheduled. Several expediting strategies are considered, including working overtime, double shifts and weekends. The method is implemented in a prototype software that operates in a Windows� environment, providing a user-friendly graphical interface. It has an open architecture, enabling the user to actively participate in tailoring the generated schedule to suit the requirements of the project at hand. The proposed method accounts for incentives and liquidated damages to aid users in identifying the most cost-efficient schedule. A relational database model is implemented in Microsoft Access� to store typical crews and their associated productivity, as well as their availability dates. A project, drawn from the literature, is analysed to demonstrate the basic features of the proposed method and highlight its capabilities.Repetitive construction, acceleration, crew productivity, time-cost trade-off,

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This paper briefly describes a model, designed to automate data acquisition and analysis for planning and scheduling highway construction projects. The paper briefly describes the proposed model, and focuses primarily on its automation aspects. Geographic information systems is employed to analyze spatial data and estimate cut and fill quantities. The model also stores activities typically involved in highway construction and automatically generates the precedence network respecting job logic. The model generates digital terrain models to represent the ground topography and underlying soil strata. Transition of soil strata between borehole locations can either be: 1) automatically generated by the model; or 2) defined by the user. The model employs the mass haul diagram to develop the optimum earthmoving plan. It accounts for the presence of transverse obstructions, such as rivers and existing highways, when developing the earthmoving plan and defining project activities. The model is implemented in a prototype software that operates in Microsoft Windows environment. It provides a user-friendly interface, including menus, dialog windows, and graphical capabilities to expedite data input and retrieval. Several input and output formats are accepted to facilitate data sharing with commercially-available software packages.