An integrated risk evaluation of an inter-regional African rail megaproject - a case of Kenya standard gauge railway

Thesis

Governments globally are facing a growing infrastructure demand. To fill this infrastructure gap, many governments including Kenya, are venturing into construction of mega infrastructure projects. Kenya through their development ‘vision 2030’ strategy, has prioritized various megaprojects. However, most of them have had varied challenges thus threatening their effective implementation. Kenya’s vision 2030 aimed to expand and enhance the capacity of railway to manage the freight cargo transportation of 25 million tonnes (50%) from the port of Mombasa in Kenya through the cities of Nairobi, Kisumu, Malaba and eventually to countries Uganda and Rwanda and this led to the conceptualization and construction of Kenya Standard Gauge Railway. This study set out to have an integrated risk assessment of the Kenya standard gauge railway of the already constructed phases 1 and 2A.

The study uses the method of systems thinking to evaluate dynamics and structure of Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway megaproject to identify key risk factors relationships within the system. It utilizes a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative methods to determine potential risks and this involves expert interviews, project managers interviews, evaluation of secondary historical data and case analysis. As an interregional megaproject, it evaluates the impact assessment of potential social, economic and environmental risk effects of SGR on the wider Kenyan and African region and establishes extensive strategies for risk mitigation on the determined risks and these can be utilized to sustain project resilience in other subsequent phases of the SGR megaproject yet to be constructed.

Because of their varied project objectives and distinct character attributes, rail megaprojects manage more complex and intricate risks than traditional projects and they have strong and significant correlation with related risk factors. Risk assessment models for rail megaprojects, in prior studies, neglected the risk interconnectedness impacts which are the risk interactions effects that increases the levels of risk. This study uses a risk interconnectedness framework for rail megaproject’s risk assessment based on a system theory. A list of risk factors is developed from a review of literature and a confirmation of the risk factors and examination of their relationships done by use of local expert interviews and case analysis. Analysis of risk factors is done by use of equations of system dynamics. The framework application is done by applying it to the Kenya Standard Gauge railway phases 1 and 2A with the hope of examination and evaluation of the risk levels in the rail megaproject in the constructed phases.

Authors: Oluoch, G

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-xqpa9nd9m
• Type of award: MSc
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English