Risk prioritization using analytic process network for metro rail implementation projects in developing countries: a typical case study of Vietnam

The purpose of this paper is to identify potential major risks of railway metro project implementation and to assess the priority of project risks concerning cost, time, and quality in terms of five project aspects as follows: stakeholder consensus; technological and technical; economic and commercialized; natural environmental; political and legal. In this study, the analytical network process was carried out to assess the influence of risk variables on project objectives. The involvement of experts, together with the analytical network process, provided a list of 27 risk variables affecting the outcome of a railway metro project implementation in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The results show that the economic and commercialized risk group has the largest standardized composite risk preference index (NRPI = 0.334), the technological and technical risk group is ranked second with an NRPI = 0.276 value, followed by stakeholder consensus, political-legal and environmental risks with standardized composite risk priority indices of 0.182, 0.140 and 0.067 respectively. The prioritization of risk components regarding given groups can provide a holistic picture of potential project risks; and this can support policy-makers to re-evaluate a project plan and associated backup solutions to mitigate the risk consequences on project objectives.