The OMEGA 1 Project

The overall aim of this study was to contribute to the advancement of the art and science of planning, appraising and delivering major projects, focusing especially on the treatment of risk, uncertainty and complexity in decision-making outside the infrastructure sector where these features have long-time been at the milieu of such decision-making with a view to learning lessons that may be carried across to the field of mega transport projects.

The underlying premise of the study was that much can be learned (and gained) from contemporary thinking about the treatment of complexity, uncertainty and risk-taking in disciplines and professions outside the infrastructure and territorial/spatial planning arenas, including: medicine, public health, agriculture, earthquake engineering, banking, insurance and the military. To this end the project commissioned contributions from professionals and academics in the above diverse fields, using these as a resource to draw out lessons that are potentially transferable to mega transport projects. The lessons derived from this project represented important inputs to the work of the OMEGA Centre in its efforts to develop a generic analytical framework for its international case studies in the OMEGA 2 Project that placed the examination of risk, uncertainty and complexity at the heart of future decision-making in the planning, appraisal and delivery of MTPs.