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The purpose of this paper is to initially evaluate the most current and important complications of sustainable mega rail transportation projects. This purpose is assisted by thoroughly reviewing the foremost uncertainties and challenging issues of STI. Once these factors are established, they will be the base of STI indicators. Finally, to consolidate such alignment, the Sydney Metro and Melbourne Metro are then compared and analyzed. The analysis would then create a platform to measure sustainability and relevant complexities in mega rail transportation projects.

To further consolidate such hypothesis, this research investigated two mega rail transportation projects in Australia. Both Sydney Metro and Melbourne Metro Rail were selected as the basis of case study, as both possess similar sustainability aspects.

As an outcome this research found that, complexities in both of these projects were based on future challenges and opportunities including imperfect equalization or not balancing all the four sustainability indicators; and where and how to emphasize the overlapping of these four indicators. In summary, these findings can assist the relevant planners, to better prepare and manage mega railway infrastructure and their operations.

While the sustainability for transportation infrastructure has been covered extensively by other authors, this paper strengthens the four specific and separate STI indicators – especially for mega rail infrastructure. Although, there are some crossover areas within these indicators, however, this research separately validates each as an independent entity. Commonly, there are three dimensions within the sustainability domain – environmental, economical and social. Nevertheless, for this research, a fourth dimension engineering which includes all the technical focus, has been separately developed. This is particularly important to effectively deal with all the complexities, particularly for mega projects, such as rail transportation infrastructure. Accordingly, separating the engineering dimension would thus reshape the triple bottom line factors to include a separate technical focus. To further evaluate this separation of the four specific areas, two mega Australian rail transportation projects are then reviewed as experiments.

As a part of adaptive and complex system thinking, geographic information systems (GIS) are beneficial particularly for transportation projects, where uncertainty is frequent. Accordingly, this paper aims to examine the utilization of GIS in line with adaptive and complex system thinking, as the basis of the methodical formulation of perceived gaps within the integrated transportation planning (ITP) specifically for the mega transportation projects. Such a framework is undertaken, as the mega transportation projects although may seem straightforward, however, are problematic and require more consideration than the traditional triple bottom line factors. Using the Sydney Metro as the case study, the outcome demonstrates the significance of the fourth separate dimension of engineering into the aforementioned bottom-line factors.

The research examines the utilization of adaptive and complex system thinking, as the basis of the methodical formulation of perceived gaps within the ITP. The use of Sydney’s Metro project is a novel example of the proposed methodical formulation and its empirical assessment and provides a better understanding of the use of mapping and planning tools for mega transportation projects.

Aptly, using the developed conceptual framework, this research further validates the inclusion of a separate engineering dimension with the usual triple bottom line factors. Such inclusion is paramount in responding to the existing ITP gaps found within the current literature.

This research uses GIS and ITP process to support the aforementioned adaptive and complex system thinking. This, in turn, is used as the basis of a methodical formulation framework in dealing with mega rail transportation infrastructure. To support such a proposition, Sydney Metro is examined as the basis of a case study.

Through the significance matrix, this paper aims to investigate and explore the main sustainability factors of mega transportation infrastructure projects. Sydney’s Metro mega transportation infrastructure is used as a case study. Sydney’s Metro was selected because of its sustainability challenges faced because of the areas’ diverse ecological zones. Sydney’s Metro is thus examined as the basis of best practice for the determination of the sustainability factors of transportation infrastructures.

Using the significance matrix as a methodology, this research evaluates the environmental impact assessment and environmental assessment processes, to alleviate the problems of the mega transportation infrastructure.

This research found that a more comprehensive determination is needed to further analyse the sustainability factors of mega transportation infrastructures, use of a significance matrix would further assess the environmental complexities of mega transportation infrastructures and the sustainability factors of mega transportation infrastructures should include a nonlinear and asymmetrical scheme highlighting its components and carefully outlining its integration and consolidation.

Although there is concurrent research into sustainability factors of mega transportation, this paper undertakes a new methodology for such infrastructure. While the significance matrix is not a new concept, it has never been used specifically for mega transportation infrastructure. Subsequently, using the significance matrix as a methodology, this research undertakes such environmental analysis and assessment and thus produces a qualitative risk analysis matrix. The findings from this research will ultimately assist the key stakeholders of mega transportation infrastructures to better plan, monitor and support similar projects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the innovative approaches to further reduce the environmental impacts during the construction of mega transportation infrastructure, particularly for Australia.

As part of this research, the Sydney Metro was exploited as a case study. This included reviewing the elements of reducing the environmental impacts for the Sydney Metro.

This research has found that there are six elements of reducing the environmental impacts of the Australian public transport infrastructure process. Moreover, this research also found that for the Sydney Metro, first, the logistic planning and optimisation was carefully developed followed by the remaining five elements.

The originality of this research consists of carefully examining the Sydney Metro’s environmental implications including its on-going EIA and EPA compliance.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) for transport infrastructure should consider geological constraints, legislative regulations, public policy and other strategic considerations. These strategic considerations and constraints that are often seen as the most challenging issues facing transportation planners are critically reviewed. Subsequently, this study aims to evaluate the enviromnetal impacts of civil transport infrastructure.

Using a mixed-method approach, this study examines the EIA and environmental impact statement (EIS) dimensions of transportation infrastructure.

Through the development of the EIA and EIS policy framework for transport infrastructure, this paper found that to better enhance the EIA and to effectively calculate various indicator variables, a hybrid approach to the method, known as input–output analysis (IOA), needs to be adopted. Knowing that a feasible cost breakdown is usually available within projects, it can be concluded that it is plausible to add an input–output (I–O) model into an existing EIS to obtain results not only for on-site effects but also for off-site effects. Moreover, some of the benefits of implementing a hybrid IOA can significantly improve the completeness of any conventional EIS for a range of quantifiable indicators, improve the ability to rank alternative options and provide a valuable overview of indirect impacts to be used for streamlining the EIA audit. For these reasons, input–output techniques could be incorporated as optional elements into the EIA standards.

With input from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and national I–O tables of the industry sector, this research was able to determine that indirect effects within transport projects are not being considered for what they are worth. This enables us to answer key questions dealing with the effects of EIAs on the transportation sector. This, in turn, can assist with planning through the commissioning of such projects.

The I–O model introduced in this paper will ultimately lead to better incorporation of various environmental elements. The findings of the paper can thus assist transportation planners in better aligning environmental impacts with EIA. This, in turn, can result in improvements in the completeness of any conventional EIS, enhance the ability to rank alternative options and provide a valuable overview of indirect impacts to be used for streamlining the EIA audit.

In successfully meeting city and metropolitan growth, sustainable development is compulsory. Sustainability is a must-focus for any project, particularly for large and mega rail infrastructure. This paper aims to investigate to what degree social, environmental and economic factors influence the government when planning sustainable rail infrastructure projects. To respond to such a matter, this paper focuses on two Australian mega-rail projects: the South West Rail Link (SWRL) and the Mernda Rail Extension (MRE).

As the basis of an experimental evaluation framework strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and factor analysis were used. These two methods were specifically selected as comparative tools for SWRL and SWRL projects, to measure their overall sustainability effect.

Using factor analysis, in the MRE, the factors of network capacity, accessibility, employment and urban planning were seen frequently throughout the case study. However, politics and economic growth had lower frequencies throughout this case study. This difference between the high-weighted factors is likely a key element that determined the SWRL to be more sustainable than the MRE. The SWOT analysis showed the strengths the MRE had over the SWRL such as resource use and waste management, and natural habitat preservation. These two analyses have shown that overall, calculating the sustainability levels of a project can be subjective, based on the conditions surrounding various analysis techniques.

This paper first introduces SWRL and MRE projects followed by a discussion about their overall sustainable development. Both projects go beyond the traditional megaprojects' goal of improving economic growth by developing and enhancing infrastructure. Globally, for such projects, sustainability measures are now considered alongside the goal of economic growth. Second, SWOT and factor analysis are undertaken to further evaluate the complexity of such projects. This includes their overall sustainable development vision alignment with environmental, economic and social factors.

Project complexity (PC) governs project success, but the project management literature primarily focuses on performance measures and rarely examines the complexity factors, especially for megaprojects. This paper aims to determine the most significant complexity factors for the railway megaprojects in India.

A mixed approach using the Delphi and best–worst method (BWM) helped to identify, validate and determine the most critical factors that require intervention to diminish variance from project performance.

The BWM resulted in stakeholder management, followed by organizational and technological complexity as significant complexity factors, and the varied interests of the stakeholder as the most important among the 40 subfactors.

The finding indicates the necessity for strategic, tactical and operational-level interventions to effectively manage the complexity affecting project efficiency because of the varied stakeholders. This paper will guide the project and general managers to prioritize their resources to handle complexity for effective project performance measured in terms of time, cost and quality and help them make strategic decisions. The research findings of this study are expected to help researchers and practitioners in better planning and smoother execution of projects. In addition, this study would help the researchers formulate policies and strategies for better handling of the projects.

This study adds significant value to the body of knowledge related to PC in megaprojects in developing countries. The result of the investigation underlined that nine complexity factors and seven unique subfactors, namely, the sustainable environment, timely availability of information, communication in both directions, interdepartmental dependency and coordination, design, statutory norms, site challenges, socioeconomic conditions, the tendency of staff to accept new technology and the frequent changes in the requirements of stakeholders are significant in railway megaprojects. The BWM is applied to rank the complexity factors and subfactors in the case area.

The research examines the impact of heavy rail transport infrastructure on residential property prices in Melbourne at different stages of project development using the Mernda Rail Extension Project as a case study.

A difference-in-difference approach is used to quantitatively measure the magnitude of change in the house price at different stages of rail transport infrastructure project development.

When controlling for a range of structural, neighbourhood, and locational attributes, the authors find that properties within 800 m from the proposed train station are 8.7% higher in value than those outside 800 m (but within 1,600 m). However, during the project's construction, the project's benefits in the form of house price appreciation are not fully realised. “Unrealised benefit” is attributed to the negative externalities of construction works and apprehensions associated with the project's shelving and time delays.

Depending on the availability of data on residential property transactions in the future, a spatial analysis of rail infrastructure's radius of catchment effect is needed.

Findings from this research are beneficial for policymakers concerned with transport and land use planning, property valuation for taxation and mortgage purposes.

This research contributes to the knowledge of the impact of the rail project on house prices in Melbourne. While there are earlier studies on the topic, there is limited understanding of this prime Australian city attractive to domestic and foreign investors.

The purpose of this paper is to glean leadership lessons of megaproject managers through the life stories of four purposefully selected managers from two contemporary and two landmark megaprojects.

A narrative inquiry approach applying thematic analysis is used to capture lessons learnt from these stories with a focus on leading megaprojects. Narrative analysis has been used in organization studies and this paper is an attempt to use it in project management research.

Common strategies used by all four megaproject managers to be successful include: selecting the right people and building their capability; building trust with stakeholders; dealing with institutional power and politics effectively; and having the courage to innovate. There were also some differences in the approaches used by these managers due the times in which these projects were implemented.

The use of narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. As the life stories were not presented in the same way it was difficult to analyze them in the same manner, and further data had to be collected. This could have been avoided if it were feasible to collect narratives directly from the megaproject managers. This is being planned in future research emerging from this paper.

This study helps megaproject managers to exhibit leadership attributes that would be required to execute such large complex projects that have wide implications for the society, economy and the environment.

Megaprojects are often considered major displacements that cause social and geophysical issues that affect the environment. Lessons learnt from these stories could be useful to avoid such issues. The stories analyzed showed the human side of the megaproject managers toward people related, health and societal issues.

Narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. In the past, project management literature has focused on extracting lessons learnt from historical and classical projects, but lessons from life stories of project managers have not been used for the same purpose.