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One constraint is that actual costs are available only in a small number of projects. Moreover, thestudy presented in this paper focuses only on the efficiency issue (time and cost), which, as willbe discussed later, comprises only a few of the aspects that the improvement scheme addresses.That said, it should be mentioned at the outset that the Author shares the frequently-held viewthat measures of efficiency alone are inadequate measures of project performance. In a recentstudy of project success, Dvir, Sadeh and Malach-Pines (2006) assert that the operational mindsetcaused by a business aspect focus in project execution reflects the frequent use of time, budgetand performance as the main indicators of project success. However, they contend that frequentuse can’t conceal the fact that these measures are incomplete, even when taken together. First ofall, it is worth noting that new elements should be added to the assessment. For example it isclear that a project, even if it meets time and budget constraints, should not be described assuccessful if the end user needs were not met. Second, project success assessments may differaccording to the assessor. In other words, the perspectives of various project stakeholders shouldbe taken into account. Finally, timing is crucial in the assessment of project success. If, forexample, the assessment is carried out soon after the output of the project work is completed, itmay be justifiable to assess whether actual costs are in accordance with budgeted costs, while anapproach which distinguishes between issues of efficiency (cost and schedule results) andeffectiveness (long-term feasibility and profitability) may be more difficult to address at this pointin time. The Author shares this view and finds it appropriate to underline that the focus onefficiency issues in this study reflects the control and investment cost focus in the qualityassurance evaluations completed so far. (The conduct of quality assurance is described in greaterdetail in a subsequent Section of this paper.) It is also clear that the study includes data fromprojects that only recently have been completed. The data presented at this point are thereforeinadequate to address any issues regarding effectiveness. It is too early to draw definitiveconclusions about the impacts of adopting the practice of external expert review of large publicprojects. As a consequence, this study should not be seen as an attempt to reach a finalconclusion on how the improvement scheme may lead to more consistent achievement ofsuccess in projects subjected to it. A measurement of project success requires more than anassessment of performance in terms of investment cost. In other words, this study comprises anattempt to explore how certain attributes of an improvement scheme in the early stages ofprojects may affect a certain aspect of project performance.Previous studiesThe work by Flyvbjerg and colleagues (Flyvbjerg, Bruzelius and Rothengatter 2003, Flyvbjerg,Holm and Buhl 2002; 2004; 2005) points to a significant problem in transportation projectmanagement: more often than not, the information that managers use to decide whether to investin new projects is both inaccurate and biased, which makes projects risky. A conundrum ariseswhenever the cost of a project is underestimated and presented to the decision-makers. Hence,nonviable projects may be implemented due to inaccurate estimates, which in turn may lead toinefficient allocation of resources. Cost overruns are frequent in road construction.Consequently, cost estimates presented to decision makers always should be scrutinized.Odeck (2004) investigated the statistical relationship between actual and estimated costs of roadconstruction using data from 620 NPRA projects over the years 1992-1995. He found adiscrepancy between estimated and actual costs. Cost overruns ranged from -59% to +183% witha mean of 7.9%. One particularly interesting finding in this sample of projects was that overrunswere prevalent among smaller projects while underruns were more frequent in larger projects.Odeck suggested that the effort exerted in diligent management of large project, with anemphasis on staying within budget, may explain this observation.2