This research was part of the Track Dynamics Founder’s Doctorate degree in Business Administration, 2022, where the researcher found that a considerable number of researchers and practitioners have long searched for identifying the delay factors in mega construction projects in different countries. However, despite the existing research about construction project delays, very little is known about dealing with delay factors of mega multi-phase, design-build projects, in general, and those for high-speed railways construction projects in specific. Accordingly, one of the main objectives of the current research is to address this shortage by investigating the actual main factors that impact multi-phase, design-build high-speed railway project performance.

Cutting the extra fat and going slim with a zero-friction operation is the ideal state that every organization is trying to reach. This also could be the ultimate goal of most organizations irrespective of their size and line of business. This extra fat is the extra time, extra cost, and extra unnecessary resources that need to be eliminated. The larger the organization and its business turnover, the more important is to go slim. This applies strongly to the construction industry as hundreds of billions of US dollars are being spent annually for the construction of megaprojects worldwide.

Recently, and specifically in the last decade, the railway mega projects are significantly increasing in the middle east and the Arabian Gulf regions. However, by following up on these projects and searching the literature, it was found that very few projects are being executed as per their baseline schedules. This triggers the researcher to dig more into the reasons why these projects are being delayed/significantly delayed. Delay leads to longer execution time and higher costs, which in some cases leads to ceasing the projects mostly by the executors. On the other hand, it will delay the use and benefit of the projects by the owners and the community at large.

Five main contributors to the construction projects including railway projects can be addressed, namely, the client (the owner), the consultant (the supervision engineer), the designer (the design engineer), the contractor, and the other stakeholders. In this paper, the researcher is going to show several reasons for the project’s delays and make weights (ranks) for these reasons to help current and future projects take corrective and/or preventive actions to improve performance.

In railway industries and due to their longitudinal nature, many railway projects are being executed over several phases or stages, this multi-stage nature usually results in splitting the projects into vertical and/or horizontal segments either to make them easier to execute or because of budget limitations which force the owners to split these projects into phases so that they can finance them over successive periods. However, when several contractors (parties) are involved in the execution of such kinds of projects it makes the execution more complicated due to the intensive interface and overlapping of the work activities between these parties, also, when the project design is divided between several firms due to their specializations, it makes the process more and more complicated.

This article discusses several possible delay factors that are contributing to the cost overrun and time delays in construction projects in general and railway megaprojects in specific. The study focuses on several potential delay factors, not only the delay factors caused by the contractor but also those factors caused by other parties related to projects’ design and execution to fairly evaluate the project’s delays. This will show how delay factors are caused by the owner, the consultant, the designer, the contractor, and the other stakeholders.

This article focuses on multi-phase design-build railway construction and concludes the main reasons for project delays in the middle east and Arabian Gulf region which will contribute to the existing literature by adding knowledge to the delay mitigations for this specific type of projects. The researcher is going to use a case study method as a qualitative research design methodology. The case study is based on a literature review and a questionnaire survey to collect data from the relevant respondents, and this will be followed by a test of the reliability of the used scale.

In addition, the researcher has collected documents, records, and other available field data to compare these results with the literature and questionnaire results

The contractor is considered by several researchers as the major contributor to project delays as the contractor is the main player in the execution period which represents the longest period in the project and many delays happen during this period. However, this is not the case as other parties contribute to these delays. Starting from determining the project period by the owner which is usually underestimated (shorter than reasonable), through developing the concept design by the designer which has errors and incompleteness, and reviewing/adjusting the design by the supervision consultant are examples of delay factors by other parties.

The total received responses are seventy-five (75) out of ninety-nine (99) total requests which were sent to the target respondents using the non-probability purposeful and selective sampling technique. The results indicate that 51% of respondents have experienced time delays between 10% and 30% of the original project duration for the projects that they have worked for, while 25% of respondents have experienced time delays over 50% of the original project duration. Similarly, 49% of respondents have experienced cost overruns between 10% and 30% of the original projects budget for the projects that they have worked for, while 27% of respondents have experienced cost overruns between 30% and 50% of the original projects budget.

The top ten most significant delay factors for the Haramain high-speed railway project are found to be; (1) Delay in decision-making/approval by municipalities, (2) Frequent design changes, (3) Delay in decision-making/approval by utility companies, (4) Scope changes and variation orders, (5) Delay in design approval by the consultant, (6) Delayed payment to subcontractors, (7) Contractors’ financial issues, (8) Delay in approving shop drawings and technical queries, (9) Delay in decision-making/approval by traffic police, and (10) Lack of PMO authority over the JV contractors. This shows that the external authorities (municipality, utility companies, traffic police) are responsible for 30% of the top five reasons for project delay, the contractor is responsible for also 30%, the consultant is responsible for 20%, and the owner is also responsible for 20%. This confirms that the “contractor” and the “external authorities” are the main contributors to the project delays.

When comparing the main study to the case study, it can be concluded that railway projects are impacted by external parties more than other general construction projects, e.g., commercial, residential, and housing buildings. The reason behind that is the linear nature of railway projects which necessitates the interface with several public authorities. Accordingly, the project’s owners need to consider this issue when they award new projects by making an action plan to deal with the external authorities before and during both the design and execution phases to avoid these unnecessary delays.

The Research results has been presented at the UIC RAME 34th Meeting in Istanbul, 2024.