Risk-Based Protocol for Inspection of Transportation Construction Projects Undertaken by State Departments of Transportation

In the last decade, the state departments of transportation in the US have experienced an increase in their construction projects, while the level of their in-house inspection staff and resources has either remained the same or declined. Previous studies have found that one strategy that may reduce the inspection workload is prioritizing construction activities for inspection. However, reducing the number of inspections also has its risks, such as functional failures and reduced design life. Thus, available inspection resources should be allocated to the activities with significant risk consequences if inspection is reduced. The objective of this paper is to develop a risk-based inspection protocol to facilitate efficient allocation of available inspection resources to minimize the risks associated with reduced inspection. First, the risk consequences associated with reduced inspection are identified for various construction activities linked to transportation projects. Based on data collected from 23 state departments of transportation, 58 engineers and inspectors from the Indiana Department of Transportation and 20 inspection consultants in the Midwest, the subjective perceived probabilities associated with the occurrence of each risk consequence are encoded by using fuzzy analysis, from which the risk impacts due to reduced inspection are obtained. The construction activities are prioritized based on the risk impacts associated with reduced inspection into five priority levels. The greater the risk impacts are as a result of reduced inspection, the higher the priority would be for inspection of that activity. Thus, the proposed protocol can be used for resource allocation based on risk impacts. The proposed list of prioritized construction activities can assist project and program managers in state departments of transportation in better allocating their limited inspection resources while reducing the risks due to reduced inspection. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.