Assessing and prioritizing risks in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects using the integration of fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methods

Public-private partnership (PPP)-based infrastructure projects generally face many risks and uncertainties at all stages of the project, including initial studies, design, construction, and operation. This causes many challenges such as increased costs, delays in the project and loss of materials and equipment, and so on. Given the need to use the PPP method in the development of infrastructure projects and its broad dimensions, it is important to accurately identify and evaluate the risks involved in these projects. In the present paper, the most important risks in these projects are identified by case study in PPP-based freeway projects in Iran and using the six step-by-step process of risk management based on PMBOK standard, a model for risk assessment it is developed. Also, for quantitative risk analysis, an attempt was made to determine the importance of risks and their priority in the studied projects by using fuzzy multi-criteria decision making techniques (FAHP and FTOPSIS). The results of quantitative risk analysis by FAHP method showed that first level risks in seven different categories including economic and financing risks, construction, operational, legal, political, other risks and government risks, respectively, have the greatest impact on PPP-based freeway projects. They are dedicated to themselves. Also, the results of the general ranking of the sub-criteria showed that high risk financing costs, quality of performance and standards, lack of support infrastructure have the greatest impact on these projects. Finally, the results of FTOPSIS similarity index showed that according to project experts, projects A (Isfahan-Shiraz Freeway), B (Salafchegan-Arak Freeway) and C (Khorramabad-Arak Freeway) with scores of 0.433, 0.3369 and 0.283, respectively, had a greater impact on risks, respectively. Also, the remaining risks that were jointly or at least one of the studied projects had a high impact were identified as final risks and were allocated among the various pillars of the project. The results of this research can be used as a management model in the process of risk assessment and management of PPP projects.