Ben610 Project Management Principles-Technical Feasibility Assessment Answer

Economic Facilitation: The project aims to enhance the transportation facility such that economic growth is supported with improved access to city services for business(Morgan, 2004)

The options for construction in the current project would be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

If nothing is done to change the status quo, it would not help meet objectives of the transportation or the growth sector. The network performance is already poor which is affecting the economic activities and deteriorating the quality of life of the residents living nearby because of a lot of accidents happening. Urban growth could not be accommodated with the exiting constraints of the network capacity. Traffic volumes on the Highway are constraining opportunities for land-use and transport integration.

Rail Connection

In this option, the quality of service would be improved to accommodate more people travelling using public transport. However, this would relieve only some congestion as only some of the commuters would be diverted from the road to the rail network which would not be significant.

Tunnel Construction

Key objectives of Big Dig project is relieve the congestion of highway, reduce the bottlenecks in the Boston downtown and reduce the rate of accidents on the highway.

Traffic Congestion: The elevated highway that was constructed in 1959 can carry 75,000 vehicles but the traffic volume has increased to over 200,000 which is why the traffic congestion has become a major issue. Close to 190,000 of these commuters using the highway use the Charles bridge.  Logan Airport and Downtown Boston have two tunnels that also add to the traffic congestion. The traffic has been observed to be crawling for p to 10 hours every day. If tunnels are constructed connecting the highway and the two bridges over Charles then  as significant amount of traffic would get diverted and the traffic congestion would significantly reduce.

Accident Rates: The accident rates in Boston are four times higher than the national average and most of these accidents are caused because of the missing cross links. With construction of the tunnel, there would be cross linking between bridges and tunnels and thus, accident rates would reduce.

Economic Improvement: The North end of Boston and the neighbourhood of Waterfront are isolated from the downtown which limits the economic growth of the city. With the construction of Big Dig tunnels, this connectivity requirement would be taken care of and thus, the economic capability of the nearby regions would improve

It is recommended that an underground tunnel is constructed connecting interstate highway with harbour, bridges over river, and Logan Airport, As a result of this construction, following benefits would be achieved:

• The traffic on the highway would be reduced with extra road availability through the tunnel
• The accidents would reduce with additional crossovers provided
• A 27 hectare pedestrian facility would encourage residential and other users to do walking across tunnel
• The tunnel would improve access to the highway from nearby residential
• Efficiency of transportation would be improved
• There would be additional opportunities for public transpiration with increased capacities
• With reduced congestion, the travel time would reduce and the transportation system would become more reliable and efficient(ACTE , 2012).

The project scope includes the following:

• Designing of the tunnels and Greenway for pedestrian usage
• Construction of Ted Williams tunnels to connect Highway with two bridges on Charles river
• Construction of a 300 hectare Rose Kennedy greenway including 27 hectare pedestrian facility(Hinchliffe, 2009)

The activities that are out of the project scope include:

The project has following constraints:

• The project has limited budget of $3.9 billion including the contingency fund

The project has certain dependencies:

• The project needs to be supported by the management of Massachusetts Turnpike Authority
• The Federal funding would be the primary mode of funding and thus, the work has to be done according to the funding a availability( BASE Energy Inc.,, 2007)

The project scope would be managed as per the defined scope and the progress would be monitored to identify deviations. If the project scope is not completed on time, appropriate actions would be taken by the project manager to ensure that project is completed on time.

Project deliverables include

• Designing of tunnel, cross-lanes and pedestrian space
• Construction of the connecting tunnel with crosslanes spread across 29 miles
• Construction of 300 acres of Green Space including pedestrian space(Hensher, 2000)

Key performance indicators of the project include

• Extent to which congestion is reduced
• Additional benefits received because of traffic congestion reduction
• Cost to benefit ratio of more than 2.9
• Value for money benefits
• Improvement in access
• Improvement in connectivity
• Travel time reduction(CH2M HILL and Good Company, 2009)

All the project contracts would be executed by Massachusetts Department of Public Works (DPW) and Massachusetts Highway Department (MHD). The project includes 16 programs that would be executed by Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff (B/PB) who is the management consultant for the project. Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) is the project owner who is responsible for making critical decisions on what to build, when to build, how to build, and how much to build.

DPW as well as MHD would give the contracts to a number of section design consultants (SDCs) that are selected public employee panels and approved by both authorities. Each SDC hired would be responsible for review of the preliminary design, resolving concerns of alternatives, and preparing a detailed design.

MTA would be giving oversight to B/PB through development of design and construction contracts as well as review and evaluation of engineers and project management staffs deployed on the project. Theses reviews and oversight activities would also be supported by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) through participating in the decision making process.

SDCs would work in conformance with project scope, design criteria, interfacing requirements, and project standards. They would be responsible for quality, correctness and completeness of deliverables. MHD who would be contracting SDCs would advertise the final design developed by SDCs for starting the tendering process. The selected construction contractor from the tendering process would have to work according to the design specifications and execute a quality control (QC) program including material certification and proof testing done by B/PB which is a certified authority. B/PB would check if work of the contractor is in line with the contract specification such that if there are any discrepancies or issues arising, the case would be referred back to SDC for clarification.

For managing the complete project, a project manager would be assigned by MTA. Below the project manager, there would be a tier 2 divisional manager and a tier 3 department manager. Tier 2 would escalate any issues on project to the MTA while Tier 3 manager would review and authorize business case documentation for the project (CHAKOUR & MAZZOTTI, 2015).

The project sponsor, MTA would assume the following responsibilities:

• Assume ownership of the business challenge
• Provide leadership and direction to project
• Provide approvals for project progress and major deliverables
• Ensure that project provides integration with the long term plan
• Ensure successful delivery of the project
• Ensure that the project is financially as well as technically compliant(US Department of Transportation, 2015)

A monthly reporting system for financial impacts and project costs would be used that would include comparison between the project expenditure and the budget. If there are variations between the costs and budget of more than $3.8 billion then authorization would be needed from the top management. A project highlight report would be developed monthly for the project sponsor to review. In the closing phase of the project, lessons learned report would be prepared. The reporting would be done by the project team to the project manager on daily basis and from project manager to the top management on monthly basis. Stakeholders would be reported the project progress on quarterly basis (Caltrans, 2007).

The procurement strategy would include alternatives in addition to the traditional PPP models of procurement such as intellectual property and learning from experience. A full PPP option would be used on this project as it would provide value for money.

The stakeholders of the project would be consulted through the use of various communication methods including surveys, meetings, interviews, emails, letters, and focus groups.

Key stakeholders of the project include:

• Residents across the region
• ratepayers association
• workers
• local groups
• district council
• Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (Cisco, 2014).

The project would take 17 years to complete and it would be executed as follows

The funding for this project would include federal funds, state funds, and borrowings. Federal government would provide 48% of the funds while remaining funds would be obtained from state resources including the infrastructure funds and own resources of the MTA (Menino, 2002).

If the project objectives could not be met, it would lead to severe consequences such as:

• Increased congestion on the Highway road which would hinder the development in the region
• Traffic problems would be increased with interchange of transport between the highway and Boston Downtown
• Vulnerability of the network to the emergencies would increase
• The growth targets of the city would not be met if the project failed to provide desired outcomes
• People would have difficulty in accessing the employment hubs in the situation of growth(Deloitte Risk Journal Editor. , 2015)

For the management of the quality of management processes and deliverables, following steps would be taken

• Quality if the project deliverables would be monitored
• The quality assurance processes would be formulated and used
• Level of Service would be used as the quality measures for operational conditions(Li & Hensher, 2013)
• Air quality assessments would be taken regularly while the project is going on to ensure health benefits for the travellers(Federal Highway Administration, 2015)

The project would be completed when all the deliverables would be met with project and deliverables quality standards followed. Only when the required outcomes are achieved, the payment would be disbursed to the contractors (LaHood, 2010).

The project is expected to bring the first year return on investment of 8% after construction is finished. Other monetary benefits that would be achieved as a result of the construction of bridge include:

• The new establishment would lead to creation of thousands of jobs for economic empowerment
• More than 260 acres of open spaces would be created with over 40 acres of parks added to the city.
• An average time taken for a trip through Boston downtown would reduce from 19.5 minutes to 2.8 minutes(Brincherhoff, 2006)
• The reduction in traffic congestion would bring $500 million as benefits annually for residents and businesses nearby(Merrill, Grodin, Issac, & Doane, 2007)
• The new artery tunnel would carry over 90,000 vehicles everyday(WSDOT, 2015)
• The carbon emissions would reduce by 12% which would give a substantial health benefit to commuters and residents.
• $500 million would be saved with reduced cost of insurance(Litman, 2016)

 References 

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Brincherhoff, P. (2006). The Big Dig: Key Facts about Cost, Scope, Schedule, and Managemnt. Bechtel.

Caltrans. (2007). Project Communication Handbook. Caltrans.

CH2M HILL and Good Company. (2009). Transportation and Sustainability Best Practices Background . Gallaudet University Kellogg Center .

CHAKOUR, P., & MAZZOTTI, P. (2015). Construction Management Transformed by the Critical Chain Method. Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.tocico.org/mpage/Chakour9_7IND

Cisco. (2014). Dubai Harnesses IoE to Make Roads Safer and to Increase Usage of Public Transportation . Cisco.

Deloitte Risk Journal Editor. . (2015). Dubai’s RTA: Applying State-of-the-Art Risk Management to a Transport Infrastructure. Retrieved July 25, 2015, from https://deloitte.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2015/07/13/dubais-rta-applying-state-of-the-art-risk-management-to-a-transport-infrastructure/

Federal Highway Administration. (2015). Tunnel Operations, Maintenance, Inspection, and Evaluation (TOMIE) Manual. US Department of Transportation.

Hensher, D. A. (2000). Urban Public Transport Challenges. The Drawng Board: An Australian Review of Public Affiars, 1(2), 47-62.

Hinchliffe, S. (2009). South East Queensland: Infrastructure Plan and Program . South East Queensland Cabinet.

LaHood, R. (2010). Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions. U.S. Department of Transportation.

Lamphere, T. (2017, December 16-32). BRIDGING THE PAST IN CORPUS CHRISTI. TN MAGAZINE .

Li, Z., & Hensher, D. A. (2013). Crowding in Public Transport: A Review of Objective and Subjective Measures. Journal of Public Transportation, 16(2), 107-134.

Litman, T. (2016). Evaluating Public Transit Benefits and Costs. Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

Menino, T. M. (2002). Fortpoint Channel Watersheet Activation Plan. Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Merrill, Ë., Grodin, D., Issac, D. M., & Doane, T. (2007). New Hamphire Master Plan Update. Town of Jaffery.

Morgan, H. (2004). Third Hampton Roads Crossing Conceptual Proposal Virginia Public-Private Transportation Act. Fluor Virginia, Inc.

MTA. (2015). MAJOR TRANSPORTATION MILESTONES IN THE BALTIMORE REGION SINCE 1940 . Balto Metro.

Pollack, S. (2017). Capital Investment Plan Draft for Public Review . PVPC .

US Department of Transportation. (2015). THE DEPARTMENT DOES NOT FULLY ENSURE COMPLIANCE WITH CONTRACT CLOSEOUT REQUIREMENTS. Department of Transportation.

WSDOT. (2015). Cost Estimating Manual for Projects . Washington State Department of Transportation.