Development Expectation Gap of Design-Build Contract Delivery in China's Civil Aviation Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

Despite the reduction in cost and schedule, and the improvement of quality and safety, the design-build (DB) method in China’s civil aviation infrastructure projects (CAIPs) has not been widely used and not reached the full value. To know what the development expectation gap is,it is necessary to determine the disparity in developmental prospects of the DB method in China's CAIPs. To this end, this paper first conducted a survey to know what the development expectation is through 69 subjects working in CAIPs. After that, 25 cases data were collected to get the actual development of the DB in CAIPs.The key findings from the comparison between the expectation and actual development show that the design institutes play a leading role in the popular form of consortium in the DB mode, and the DB method is mainly used in CAIPs with small investment. In addition, this paper also analyzes how some causes contributed to the development gap and presents three strategical actions. This study not only shows the development status of the DB method in CAIPs, but also presents the reasons contributing the development expectation gap, along with the potential strategic actions, which can be as a reference for scholars and practitioners.