No abstract

Contract management is a crucial component of any project. As construction projects are complex and difficult to manage, adequate attention must be given to the related contract management issues. Inexpert management can bring about serious unfavourable consequences that can even result in a project failure. This study aims to explore a specific case study: A private road construction project implemented in the Czech Republic. The analysis consists in identifying potential problems and discussion of their implications. The problem is investigated on three levels: economic, technical and legal. The paper also considers contrasting attitudes of the contracting parties (buyer and supplier), e.g., from the point of view of the causes of problems. Several recommendations are formulated on the basis of the research findings. The results of this study have an ambition to improve contract management capabilities in the construction sector in order to prevent the occurrence of similar problems in future and contribute to our understanding of long-term effects of contract management problems throughout the life cycle.

The paper deals with the issue of evaluation of socioeconomic impacts of occurrences emerging from railway infrastructure. The presented research results form part of a broader research subject focusing on the evaluation of the socioeconomic benefits of projects for the implementation of measures aimed at increasing the safety and reliability of railway infrastructure. The research topic addresses a part of the evaluation of railway infrastructure project efficiency within its life cycle using the cost–benefit analysis method. The methodology is based on the description and definition of input variables that are essential for the process of evaluating socioeconomic impacts. It is followed by another important step, which is the analysis of the categories and the number of occurrences, separately, for regional and national lines, and, further, the data is sorted according to whether occurrences emerge at stations or on a wide line. The result of the presented research is an overview of the calculated values of the expected socioeconomic impacts of partial occurrences according to the categories related to the year of operation on the railway infrastructure and the unit of measure. The research team carried out an inquiry into the annual impacts of the subcategories of occurrences related to one railway station and one kilometer of wide line, e.g., for national lines, the impacts of €2922.72/station/year and €41.67/km of wide line/year were determined. The results of the presented research represent important and necessary inputs for the next phase of the research topic, i.e., the evaluation of the socioeconomic benefits of projects increasing the safety and reliability of railway infrastructure.

Evaluation of the economic efficiency of investment projects in transport infrastructure in the Czech Republic is methodically based on the Departmental Methodology of the Ministry of Transport. Economic cash flows, generated in accordance with the CBA principles, are modelled within this methodology on the basis of the evaluation of socioeconomic impact of individual projects. In the case of the railway infrastructure constructions, the socioeconomic impacts used by the methodology do not include benefits associated with increasing safety and reliability of the railway infrastructure network due to new security systems implementation. Determination of socioeconomic impacts associated with specific types of incidents on the railway which are caused by insufficient railway infrastructure security and which could be eliminated by the implementation of the higher-level signaling equipment forms the subject of the research. The research is based on the analysis of a database of incidents occurring on the railway in the Czech Republic in the 2009-2018 period, which describes the basic impacts associated with a particular incident. Statistical data on the railway infrastructure is also used to determine the impact of incidents in addition to the database. The key outcomes of the research are the determination of methodological steps for the evaluation of the impacts of incidents on the railway and a case study for their verification. Future research will focus on making evaluation of the abovementioned benefits more detailed. Research outcomes will improve decision-making process on selection and financing of the projects related to railway infrastructure safety for their future implementation.

No abstract