Identifying the Critical Risks in Railway Projects Based on Fuzzy and Sensitivity Analysis: A Case Study of Belt and Road Projects

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a Chinese development strategy developed in order to establish connectivity and deepen cooperation between China and other countries, increase trade, and support the socio-economic development of vast regions. A significant number of railway projects are planned to be constructed under BRI since railways are the most efficient means of transportation. This paper investigates the critical risks in railway projects implemented under BRI. In total, 24 potential risks in BRI railway projects are identified and categorized into 6 groups. A questionnaire survey is conducted in order to collect data about the probability of risk occurrence and their impact. To identify the critical risks in railway projects, a novel method based on fuzzy and sensitivity analysis is developed and applied for risk assessment. This method uses a fuzzy synthetic evaluation approach to assess risks and sensitivity analysis as criteria for critical risk identification. The results show that the most critical risks in railway projects are changes in design, design errors, cooperation between China and BRI country, loan risk, complex geological conditions of terrain, and geopolitical risk. The theoretical contribution of this paper is a novel method which combines fuzzy and sensitivity analysis into a single approach