Fuzzy probabilistic approach for risk assessment of BOT toll roads in Indian context Tirth Dineshkumar Patel Department of Civil Engineering, U.V. Patel College of Engineering, Mehsana, India Theo C. Haupt Department of Engineering, Mangosuthu University of Technology, Scottburgh, South Africa, and Tejas Bhatt Department of Bio-Medical Engineering, U.V. Patel College of Engineering, Ganpat University, Mehsana, India Abstract Purpose – The built-transfer and operate (BOT) toll model has been a common approach for highway construction in India. Due to large amount of investment, many stakeholders and long concession period, Indian BOT toll roads become susceptible to different risks. Risk assessment is one of the essential and difficult steps of risk management that enables professionals to quantify and analyze the risks that may hamper the BOT toll project performance in terms of cost, quality, safety and time. The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the risk factors by the fuzzy probabilistic model. Design/methodology/approach – The comprehensive literature review has been carried out for identification of Indian BOT toll roads projects’ risk factors. A structured questionnaire was prepared which was then filled by contractors, government officers, academicians, project managers and consultants. For risk assessment, a systematic quantitative-based fuzzy probabilistic model is proposed with the help of lab-view, as a risk assessment technique to simulate the impreciseness of human judgment and to improve the assessment accuracy. Findings – The risk assessment is one of the difficult tasks because BOT toll roads have complex structure. In this study, total 71 risks have been identified and categorized under 14 risk factors on a basis of case studies of Indian toll roads and literature review. All risks have been assessed by the fuzzy probabilistic model by lab-view. The land acquisition is the most crucial risk of BOT toll roads project which is subsequently followed by construction time and cost over-run. Also, Indian BOT toll roads are facing the traffic shortfalls critically, which became a reason toward declination trend for investment in BOT toll projects by the private players. Other risks like political risks, contractual and social risk badly are affecting the project performance. Early risk identification and assessment can be beneficial for the project, which is required to prepare the risk response strategy before the project commencement. Originality/value – This study throws light on comprehensive risk assessment and framework modeling of the risk assessment for the BOT toll roads project in India. This comprehensive risk assessor model can be used for BOT toll roads in Indian scenario for prioritization of the critical risk. It is important for the public and private sectors to establish an effective risk assessor model for public–private partnership (PPP) projects to achieve win-win condition for both. Keywords India, Fuzzy logic, Risk assessment, Risk management, Public private partnership (PPP), BOT toll road Paper type Research paper Assessment of BOT toll roads in Indian context 251 Received 24 May 2019 Accepted 16 July 2019 Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology Vol. 18 No. 1, 2020 pp. 251-269 © Emerald Publishing Limited 1726-0531 DOI 10.1108/JEDT-05-2019-0138 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1726-0531.htm