Abstract:
Investment on transport infrastructure is a significant component in a country’s budget as it is identified
as a key factor to facilitate the country’s development. At the same time demand for transportation is
positively correlated with the development. With this increasing demand for transport infrastructure and
limited funding available, it is necessary to prioritise appropriate projects. Current appraisal practices at
the early stages of projects fail to identify some important criterions and therefore, may ultimately end up
not selecting the most appropriate project(s) which addresses contemporary concerns. Therefore the
objective of this study is to identify a cost effective method and factors that should be considered in
evaluating alternatives at the early stages of transport infrastructure projects. Both academic and grey
literature was reviewed to identify current practises; methodologies and factors concerned in the recent
past. Most of the time feasibility reports used descriptive format and often gave vague conclusions.
Therefore the final selection of alternative(s) is implicit.
A performance matrix was developed in this study based on multi criteria analysis linear additive model.
This method was primarily selected as it is easy to use in practise. In addition to the traditional criterions,
this matrix contains new criterions that should be looked into with the current interests. A case study for
Kandy expressway alternative selection based on this developed performance matrix is presented in this
paper. In addition to the new matrix, a modified scoring system was used in the analysis to minimise the
variations, as scores are given by different experts. Further, analysis was compared with the view of
different experts and results of sensitivity analysis to address the possible arguments on weight given to
each criterion.
