Evaluating the barriers to the presence of operation and maintenance contractors in the pre-occupancy stages of infrastructure projects: a case study of road infrastructure projects

Abstract

Road projects play a key role to achieve economic and social developments in countries. They require huge costs to be kept well maintained. Utilisation of knowledge and experience of operation and maintenance stakeholders in the initial project stages is a critical solution for that; however it has always been faced with obstacles that need to be identified and resolved. This study evaluates the obstacles obtained from both literature review and case studies conducted by semi-structured interviews in road construction projects in Iran, and finally a framework of these obstacles is presented as the most significant obstacles to transfer knowledge from the operation and maintenance phase to the initial phases of the project. This study shows that more attention of various project stakeholders is required and as a basis, helps researchers to find solutions to facilitate and improve the usage of these concepts in projects.