Explaining cost increases in the front-end of public infrastructure projects

This study explores explanations for costs increases during the front-end of road projects, which includes the planning stages up until the project execution starts, through an analysis of project governance and cost-estimation practice in the Norwegian Public Road Administration. We group the identified explanations into six categories: (1) lack of involvement by project owner; (2) organizational factors, culture and competence; (3) project development and immature projects; (4) impacts from external environment; (5) inadequate cost-estimation process; and (6) strategic considerations. We discuss the explanations from the perspectives of deliberate underestimation, unintentional underestimation and inadequate cost management and control