Henry HattenrathProject Consultant| Tectonic Engineering MSA LLCNew York, Ny, United States
This article follows a series of articles on the best advice for Commuter Railroad Company (CRC) risk policy, which included a section related to capital projects.
Construction work on rail transit projects are typically performed while operations are maintained to support service plans for the core business of transporting customers and freight from departing points to destination locations. The priority is always to operations at the expenses of the performance goals and schedule dates for projects. As a result, the work areas and work hours for construction contractors are highly constrained and subject to inefficiencies due to limited access and reduced production time in the standard 8 hour work periods.
In addition, the work area may be within the right-of-way used by trains. Under federal regulations for roadway worker protection, CRCs are required to have a systematic approach to identifying and establishing contractor access for work and for protecting workers in the work area. The CRC will use various authorities and operation alternatives so the area can be made available and safe for the contractor’s work Similar to roadway maintenance and protection of traffic plans, creating alternative routes for trains around construction work areas is best accomplished by taking tracks out-of-services and re-routing trains to other tracks. In most cases, this means changing train schedules, adding or canceling trains, or providing alternative customer transport via bus or subway services during the period for track outages.
Planning of project work and track outages can take at least two years due to the impact on operations of the transport system, which driven by safe operation, on-time performance, customer comfort and the effective utilization of fixed assets such as stations, platforms, intermodal terminals, and rolling assets such as passenger cars and rail-borne construction equipment. Services changes to schedules and routes that affect customer flow at stations may require temporary platforms and station/facility modifications. During the two years prior to the actual outage, the scope of the alternate services and station facility modifications will be designed, and a schedule of track outages prepared for analyzing the impact on the entire transport system.
Implementing outages can affect train schedules, employee assignments, configuration of stations and platforms, train stop locations and the time for meeting connecting trains where customers transfer for continuing travel itineraries. Mitigating each affect requires no less than 12 month advance notice to implement by policies, labor agreements, CRC procedures and processes, and public board approvals. If the construction windows change the track outage can not be altered. If missed by the construction schedule, the track and the work will likely slip 12 months to 2 years until another period can be identified in the successor track outage plans.
Projects requiring track outages will incorporate activities, dates, resources and milestones into construction schedules and be integrated to align with all primary project work by contractors and in-house personnel. In house personnel supporting track outages can include supplemental station/terminal staff, extra train crews and trains, and operations personnel to monitor and maintain temporary conditions to signal, power and train movement systems.
Below is a worksheet for a CRC that can assist a project team and contractor(s) to manage risk regarding track outages that are required to support construction along the right-of-way.
Project Risk Track/power outages scheduled in the CRC Annual Program Plan are changed due to operating priorities, safety stand-downs, unplanned projects, emergency conditions or shortages of railroad manpower. This may result in train delays, postponement of scheduled work, cancellation of outages, and corrective actions to re-schedule construction on projects.
Trigger CRC Transportation’s notification to project leads that the scheduled outages; including long term, weekend outages, weekday/weeknight outages; are canceled or postponed. This can occur prior to or during scheduled construction under the outage. A MINOR trigger is long-term outages/project work re-scheduled to another date in the Annual Program. A MAJOR trigger is long-term outages/project work re-scheduled to a succeeding Annual Program.
Mitigation CRC Engineering, Transportation and Service Planning will implement track outages as planned, and mitigate impacts to project work from unplanned changes to track outages. At the weekly track outage meetings, CRC and project representative will present and agree on actions to mitigate unplanned changes by allocating other outage periods or by prioritizing new outages for another calendar work period. CRC’s project risk management plans will be reviewed to supplement mitigation actions.
Monitoring After CRC approval of the Annual Track Outages Plan, CRC Engineering and Transportation chair weekly track outage meetings to execute outages to support projects and conduct planning and execution activities for service plan changes, including timetable changes. At the meetings, project work is coordinated with planned outages to confirm the work and other operating plans, assess piggy back opportunities for other project work, and to evaluate threats from political and community events/requests.
Response Action A MAJOR trigger requires a complete schedule change for track outages as well as re-sequencing and re-scheduling the capital program of projects, which are covered in CRC operating capital plan, CRC’s capital program of projects, and mega-project program plans. CRC Engineering, Transportation, Service Planning, Strategic Investments, and Capital Program Management will conduct re-planning meetings to re-organize the program accordingly. As needed, funding in risk reserves and program reserves will be used to off-set estimated expenses for material storage, and estimated costs for material and labor escalation for delaying work to later years.
Please provide any comments from your experience. Saving Changes...
Hi Henry,
You should really create a blog here at PM.com in your Profile / Account / Blogs.
I like you series Saving Changes...
Henry HattenrathProject Consultant| Tectonic Engineering MSA LLCNew York, Ny, United States
Thanks Vincent for the suggestion and support. I reached out to PM.org editor to discuss a plan for converting many of the discussions into blogs. .
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1 reply by Vincent Guerard
Dec 07, 2017 9:07 AM
Vincent Guerard
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Looking forward a more permanent way to follow you publishing. You may be able to set it by yourself!
Saving Changes...
Deepesh RammoorthyICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood ServiceTarneit, Vic, Australia
I agree and I had suggested this before . If you post this in a discussion forum , 9 times out of 10 no one reads it because it's too lengthy . The users are expecting a very quick and snappy question so they can comment on it . Saving Changes...
