Using case study analysis to understand reasons for the discontinuation of international transportation projects

International transportation projects (ITPs) play an important role in eliminating cross-border and regional transportation bottlenecks, and the development of global trade. The ITPs face high uncertainties due to the dynamic external environment and the complexity of international stakeholders, hence are more often experiencing suspensions and cancellations during the whole project lifecycle from development and design to construction and operation. However, there is currently a lack of systematic analysis regarding the discontinuation of ITP lifecycle. This study adopts a case data mining method to analyze the discontinuation of ITPs and the impact factors from a systematic view of whole life cycle (WLC) perspective. The results reveal the dynamics of the impact factors for project suspension and cancellation. The project type and regional analysis reveal distinguished distributions of the key impact factors. The cognitive mapping of stakeholders discovers that the local government is the primary initiator of suspension and cancellation, and the foreign policy banks and host government institutions are the recipients of the negative consequences. Suggestions are provided to practitioners in civil engineering and researchers in ITPs to help better understand and systematically eliminate the discontinuation of the projects.