An Intelligent Decision Support System for Improving Information Integrity in Procuring Infrastructures in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong has gone through huge programmes of infrastructure development, which bring about significant economic benefits and improve our living environment. The government of the HKSAR has developed tender evaluation methods to achieve transparent and systemic procurement of public works infrastructure contracts and has recently introduced more attributes to enhance competition in the technical quality, safety, innovation, productivity and sustainability of tenders. However, cost and time overruns have still been reported on major infrastructure projects. Issues with the validity and efficiency of decision-making regarding procurement (i.e., cost estimation, time schedule, and comprehensive evaluation) have been regarded as one of main reasons for these problems at the pre-construction stage, while the loss of essential decision information during this decision process can extremely influence the decision validity and efficiency. Some efforts have been made theoretically to deal with vagueness and improve information integrity using uncertain theories, including fuzzy sets, probability, and fuzzy extensions. However, there is little research focusing on the real decision problems existed in infrastructure procurement process, which is lacking in systematic and efficient solutions to improve information integrity. This paper aims to develop an intelligent decision support system (IDSS) for improving decision information integrity in procuring infrastructures in Hong Kong. A systems approach based model is proposed to analyze the main reasons for information loss in tender evaluation process of infrastructure projects. Three kinds of reasons for information loss have been found, namely, vagueness, scarcity and risk neglect. Based on that, an IDSS using fuzzy theories and perceptual computing has been furtherly developed to address the problems about information loss existed. This developed system will contribute to a step change in practice and policy towards successful decisions on infrastructure tender evaluation in Hong Kong and inform reliable infrastructure procurement in other urban contexts.