Engineering Commons^™

Top-Down Construction Cost Estimating Model Using An Artificial Neural Network, Douglas D. Gransberg, H. David Jeong, Ilker Karaca, Brendon Gardner

Ilker Karaca

This report contains the information and background on top-down cost estimating using artificial neural networks (ANN)_to enhance the accuracy of MDT early estimates of construction costs. Upon conducting an extensive review of MDT’s budgeting and cost estimating efforts, and following a survey of agency experts on the identification of the most salient project attributes with the dual-objectives of low effort and high accuracy, a rational method for top-down variable selection is proposed. Selected variables were further tested in their explanatory power of construction costs through the application of two cost estimating methodologies—multiple regression and artificial neural network methodologies. Both methods …