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Road safety guidelines are not properly implemented and are not diverse enough to counter an annual increase in traffic volume. The mitigation techniques of road regulating bodies have failed in minimizing road accidents with the increase in road users. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide valuable insight to the facilitators and decision-making stakeholders by predicting the number of accidents because it is an existential hurdle toward the prevention of accidents. Therefore, this study aims to create temporal patterns to forecast the accident rates in Pakistan by utilizing univariate time series analysis such as seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) and exponential smoothing (ES) models. The results indicate that the ES model fitted better on accident data over the SARIMA model after calculating the lowest mean absolute error, root mean square error, mean absolute percentage error and normalized Bayesian information criterion. The study provides the guiding principles to implement the forecasted accident rates in the designing of roads to ensure the safety of end users which is a prime interest for accident rate collection agencies, decision-makers, design consultants and accident prevention departments.

The swiftly mounting world energy consumption has sparked questions regarding supply constraints, the collapse of energy resources, and dense environmental effects. Although the construction industry has much developed, yet construction is still a difficult, and costly process. Consequently, there is a necessity to find additional energy-efficient and cost-saving substitutes to sustain the urbanization of houses at a reasonable price to low-income groups. This study aims to provide an energy-efficient proposal for a housing scheme with strict control over cost allowing the low-income groups to enjoy livability stemming from the thermally comfortable and cost-saving technology. For this purpose, visits and surveys were carried out to critically analyze the respective housing scheme. Two proposals were suggested i.e. Proposal A by applying a low-cost technique called a Rat-trap bond to the walls and Proposal B, by designing an architectural plan for proficient utilization of space along with Rat-trap bond. Proposal B is highly recommended for construction as it saves 799 units of electricity and is 28% cost-effective during the construction phase than the existing housing unit. Summarized results were prepared from cost analysis and Ecotect analysis which ascertains the proposal to be energy efficient in addition to low cost. It is recommended to invest in cost-effective and energy-efficient technologies at the governmental level so that the challenge of inadequate housing can be answered once and for all.

Construction industry started to incorporate the idea of energy efficiency in infrastructure and design a few decades ago. This review paper specifically deals with one of such energy efficient masonry technique called Rat-trap bond. For this purpose, body of knowledge is explored high and low and only those articles are selected that deal particularly with Rat-trap bond. The thorough study of this selected literature shows that the bond is not only energy proficient but also cost saving. With the ability to reduce cooling and thermal load, the bond is structurally stable as well. The compressive strength test of rat-trap bond with C.M. 1:5 is 49% (0.87 MPa) stronger than C.M 1:4 (1.30 MPa) with and without roof slab respectively. The review is an attempt to suggest future recommendations by finding the research gap in this field of knowledge. It has been found that although the bond has a promising ability to be practically adopted yet it has not enjoyed the eminence it deserves. Only a limited number of case studies are present for realization of this technique. It is recommended that this masonry technique, owing to its less construction cost and excellent energy efficiency, can be primarily utilized by low income groups and in residential constructions.

In the construction industry, the policymakers tend toward economic sustainability. Whereas in the construction industry the associated future cost inflicts barriers on project sustainability. Therefore, Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) approach, which acts as an economic indicator has been considered for predicting the associated cost. While predicting the Life Cycle Cost (LCC), there exists inconsistency in the future data, thus an automation approach is required to minimize the variability in the cost prediction and analyse the LCC. The purpose of this systematic review is to spotlight on the implications of Building Information Modelling (BIM) which is an automated approach in performing LCCA. The relevant literature was extracted from the Scopus database. A total of 39 articles were extracted, afterward, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology is applied, and 24 articles are left for further interpretation. In the reviewed articles, the importance of BIM in measuring LCCA is highlighted. The BIM approach can help in quantity estimation and analyzing the future operation and maintenance cost for LCCA with accuracy. Whereas still, data acquisition is a barrier in performing LCCA. There is a need for a BIM library that consists of the required data parameter to perform LCCA, also an LCC schema is required such as IFC and COBie to assist in data exchange for LCCA.