Neural network model incorporating a genetic algorithm in estimating construction costs

This paper applies the back-propagation network (BPN) model incorporating genetic algorithms (GAs) to cost estimation. GAs were adopted in the BPN to determine the BPN's parameters and to improve the accuracy of construction cost estimation. Previously, there have been no appropriate rules to determine these parameters. The construction cost data for 530 residential buildings constructed in Korea between 1997 and 2000 were used for training and evaluating the performance of the model. This study showed that a BPN model incorporating a GA was more effective and accurate in estimating construction costs than the BPN model using trial and error. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.