ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to investigate the issues that surround the production and use of project cost data from the perspective of practitioners. Gathering, comparing and presenting construction cost data is a challenge. Following the 2012 survey report and numerous press articles Turner & Townsend (T&T) collaborated with Bond University’s Centre for Comparative Construction Research (CCCR) to explore options for improving the presentation of comparative cost data in future survey reports. T&T already had the cost data collected in the survey and, using the CCCR method of citiBLOCs, calculating the purchasing power parity (PPP) factors was quite straightforward. The relative costs of the basket of goods between regions become the PPP factor or multiplier that can be applied to each country’s costs of construction in local terms. While the construction industry is used as the context, the principles discussed apply to all types of projects, regardless of sector.
