The Regional Price Lists for the Estimation of Construction Costs: A Comparison at National Level

Given the different stages of the development of a building project, the economic planning phase of the intervention is quite strategic for its feasibility (Battisti et al., Land 9(1), (2020); Bottero et al., A literature review on construction costs estimation: Hot topics and emerging trends. Green Energy and Technology, pp 117–131, 2021; Napoli et al., Sustainability 11(4), 2019; Rebaudengo and Prizzon, Lecture notes in computer science (including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics. Springer Verlag, pp 473–484, 2017; Rebaudengo and Piantanida, IOP conference series: materials science and engineering, 2018; Rebaudengo et al., Smart innovation, system and technologies. Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland, pp 635–642, 2019; Sdino and Rosasco, Appraisal and Valuation: Contemporary Issues and New Frontiers. Springer Verlag, 2020). In the public works field, the correct planning and estimation of costs allows an effective and efficient allocation of public economic resources and respect for deadlines, which have a great importance for works destined to essential public services. The last Italian legislation about the planning and construction of public works (Legislative Decree n. 50/2016) has introduced some changes relating the economic planning and cost estimation, the Article n. 23—paragraph 7 establishes that the definitive project of a public work must contain “definitive quantification of the expenditure limit for the realization and the relative time schedule, through the use, where existing, of the price lists prepared by the territorially competent regions and autonomous provinces, in agreement with the Italian territorial divisions of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport”. The reference to the regional price lists for the evaluation of the economic amount of a public work (project) aims to establish a single tool for the different operators (public administrators, designers, construction companies, etc.) who have to plan and estimate the costs of the project since the early phases of the design. Unlike the recent past, where the cost estimate of a public (and private) work could be made using municipal or provincial price lists, nowadays the price lists by Italian regions must be taken as a reference. The aim of the legislator is to take as a reference, in the economic planning phase, a single tool for estimating costs, sufficiently representative of the various cost formation functions in the building sector and to consider the specificities of local economic and productive realities. At this time, all Italian regions have a regional Price List which replace those developed on a local basis; their use to estimate the cost to be assumed as a basis for the tender has eliminated the problem of estimating, for the same project, different costs depending on the local Price List utilized. For a public work, any differences of the construction cost estimated in the design phase can be justified only by the different location of the work at a regional level and no longer provincial or municipal level. Taking as reference a case study relating to the construction of a medium-sized hospital (300 beds), this study aims to develop a comparison of unit costs derived from the analysis of the price lists of twenty Italian regions. The aim is to verify whether, for the same project, the construction costs of the main workings vary in relation to the regional location and what is the average difference. This is important not only for an efficient economic planning of public works by local and national public administrations (preparation of the necessary budget, etc.) but also for a more effective control of the differences between the initial and final budgets. The regional Price List for estimating costs represent new tool for an efficient valuation and governance of the public projects developed by public administrations, a topic debated within the “Evaluation Sciences” conference organized by Siev, in Syracuse (Italy), in July 2019.