Social sustainability indicators for road infrastructure projects: A systematic literature review

Australia’s population is predicted to grow to 31.4 million by 2034, according to Infrastructure Australia Audit 2019, resulting in additional demand for road infrastructure. Although road infrastructure projects have a significant positive impact at the regional level regarding reduced travel time, improved accessibility, and amenities, they may also have negative social impacts at the local level. However, road infrastructure projects are often seen as key drivers of economic development. Social aspects are generally less considered in the decision-making process of the project lifecycle. The existing sustainability assessment models focus on economic and environmental aspects and lack social considerations. To bridge the gap, this paper aims to examine the existing literature on social sustainability in the construction industry and identify the social aspects and relevant indicators to be considered in assessing the social sustainability performance of road infrastructure projects. Through systematic literature review, using Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCO and google search databases from an initial set of 1178 journals, conference papers, books, book chapters and other relevant industry reports, 80 articles related to social sustainability in the construction industry were selected for the study. Based on the analysis, nine social sustainability criteria such as quality of life, equity, employment, health and safety, stakeholder participation, culture and heritage, compensation strategies, governance, macro-social activities and 78 respective indicators were identified. The findings of this study may assist policymakers and industry practitioners in developing comprehensive assessment models for benchmarking social sustainability in Australian road infrastructure projects.