Collaborative Contracting and the Delivery of Road and Bridge Infrastructure by Phil Mumford

As a leader in the delivery of road and bridge infrastructure and transport technology solutions, Queensland Motorways has successfully utilised project alliances to ensure its projects are delivered on time and on budget. Currently, work is progressing on its $2.12 billion Gateway Upgrade Project, which is the largest bridge and road project in Queensland's history. The project is due to be delivered by 2011 and includes the duplication of the Gateway Bridge, the upgrade of 16 kilometres of motorway and seven kilometres of new motorway north of the Gateway Bridges, including a second access to the Brisbane Airport.

To further improve traffic conditions on the Queensland Motorways road network, it was also decided that Queensland Motorways would transition from a hybrid cash and constrained lane electronic tolling operation to a full open-road electronic tolling system, known as free-flow tolling. This was to occur prior to the opening of the second Gateway Bridge in 2011. Free-flow tolling was in fact delivered two years earlier than originally planned, providing the benefits to customers sooner.

During the free-flow tolling concept study, it became apparent that interchange upgrades in the vicinity of the existing toll plazas would be necessary to allow motorists to safely enter and exit the motorway at the planned higher speed. Queensland Motorways chose to form a project alliance to deliver the design and construction of the civil works necessary to transition to free-flow tolling. Through a competitive selection process, BMD Constructions (BMD) was chosen as the preferred construction partner and Kellogg Brown & Root Pty Ltd (KBR) was contracted as the design partner, the partnership became known as the Logan Alliance.

Overall, the Logan Alliance delivered value for money from both a cost and a non-cost perspective by adopting and maintaining a project specific value for money framework and focusing on achieving outstanding performance within the nominated KRAs. The most significant demonstration of value for money was in the achievement of the principle project objective – the completion of the works prior to the nominated deadlines. The necessary works to commission free-flow tolling were completed within a period of less than 15 months and prior to the publicly announced completion date. This was approximately three months sooner than the earliest achievable date for ‘go-live’ under a traditional contract (as per preliminary program for a traditional contract produced during early stages of the Free-Flow Tolling Project).

Queensland Motorways CEO Phil Mumford said when forming alliances Queensland Motorways looked for whole-of-life outcomes on its projects and encouraged tenderers to look for innovation.

“The key to achieving value for money is to set realistic budgets and timeframes at the beginning,” Mr Mumford said.

“Strong risk management is also essential – good systems, good people, and adequate resourcing. If all of these elements are established well, it places the project in good stead for delivery in terms of time and budget,” he said.

“Queensland Motorways evaluates tenders based on their potential to deliver value for money with both quantitative and qualitative issues assessed, not just the tender price. We look at some non-price features that we believe are extremely important and then bring it all back to an adjusted comparative price, giving us a very high degree of confidence on the value for money tender that we ultimately select.”

Key objectives within the Queensland Motorways Free-Flow Tolling alliance framework includes achieving value for money through:

contributing to achievement of company objectives
non-cost factors such as fitness for purpose, risk exposure, quality, service and support
cost-related factors including whole-of-life costs and expenses associated with acquisition, use, maintenance and disposal.
meeting Queensland Motorways’ specific objectives, policies and codes of practice with respect to environmental sustainability, compliance and workplace health and safety (goal of Zero Harm)
ensuring probity and accountability for outcomes

“On the and the Free-Flow Tolling Project Queensland Motorways determined that the best way of achieving value for money was to form project alliances rather than traditional forms of contracting (i.e. hard dollar contracting),” Mr Mumford said.

In Phil Mumford’s view the benefits from a value for money perspective of delivering the works via a project alliance are significant.

“Non-owner participants utilise their capacity and aspiration to deliver the project within tight timeframes to meet the completion date. A traditional form of contracting would require the entire design to be completed upfront. This would potentially reduce the time available for construction by up to 50 per cent and make it highly improbable to achieve practical completion by the announced deadline,” Mr Mumford said.

“A project alliance allows for an undefined scope to be developed and alternative design solutions investigated with contractor input. This approach is not suited to a traditional delivery model, which lacks the benefit of having contractor input during design development and potentially leading to significant cost and delay to completion,” he said.

Mr Mumford added that transparency and openness was applied on all Queensland Motorways projects in relation to budget, risk and expenditure over which Queensland Motorways has influence and control.

“A structured relational approach by all parties enables various groups, cascading down through the organisations, to share information and minimise knowledge loss,” he said.

Mr Mumford said achieving the principle objective – the completion of works on time and budget was a direct result of good planning, strong documentation under which we entered an agreement, good people, advice and adequate resources.

“It is important not to lose alliance contracting benefits by focusing on price alone. However, it is also just as important to keep everything in balance and ensure that the focus on effectiveness and efficiency in alliance partnerships is not lost along the way,” he said.