CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
This is a smart way to procure something like this, something you have no internal expertise on?
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Calgary Regional Rail Transit
- Thread starter Oddball
- Start date
darwink
Senior Member
Yeah.
Then you're not trusting the results of one consultant telling you it would be cheaper to build HSR on a net basis because the fares will pay back the incremental cost.
When it is the bidders who tell you that, or to build a tunnel here, an embankment there, straighten this track to raise average speed at x$, it is much more real, and for not much money you get three independent assessments.
trtcttc
Active Member
These consortia also seem odd. Usually a bid would have more firms, not sure what expertise Air Canada can provide to a rail project. The fact the bids are coming in at such different speeds for the high-speed portion, it's almost like a design competition?
For the Green Line, the bids were:
Bow Transit Connectors is made up of Barnard Constructors of Canada LP, Flatiron Constructors Canada Ltd. and WSP Canada Inc.
City Link Partners is composed of Aecon Infrastructure Management Inc., Dragados Canada Inc., Acciona Infrastructure Canada Inc., Parsons Inc. and AECOM Canada Ltd.
darwink
Senior Member
demand modeling, fare pricing, market segmentation, customer experience. If the entire project for example only saves 5 minutes of travel time, does it really matter if the customer experience of lining up in advance for trains on VIA isn't fixed? Gotta think about the entire flow.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Not to state the obvious but this seems like what should be done for something where you do not have the internal expertise. At this stage, or whenever you see the results of the bids, you get a pretty wholesome picture of the system they've designed.
This should absolutely be used for the rail they want to build here. Seems like the most efficient way to integrate multiple technologies like HSR, Regional Rail, and Commuter Rail.
This should absolutely be used for the rail they want to build here. Seems like the most efficient way to integrate multiple technologies like HSR, Regional Rail, and Commuter Rail.
trtcttc
Active Member
But are they operating the thing? If Via Rail is operating it, shouldn't they be involved? And the other bidders don't seem to have a similar operator involved.
trtcttc
Active Member
But without internal expertise, how can you evaluate the bids? Are the assumptions reasonable? Is this the actual cost of building these things?
darwink
Senior Member
VIA will provide branding yes, and are part of the public sector side of the P3 process.
Having VIA run the thing would misalign incentives for no benefit.
You hire a fleet on consultants to help evaluate. In the end, price and performance metrics are the ultimate decider. It is one of the key benefits of a full P3 - you don't need the expertise to build or run the thing, just to know how to set the metrics and evaluate competence.
trtcttc
Active Member
Wasn't that the big problem with the Eglinton Crosstown? They bid the whole project to 1 contractor and had no internal expertise, so problems were not caught. The line was built with lots of issues but Metrolinx wasn't competent enough to understand the issues until the line was testing and they found misaligned rails, leaking roofs, etc. The full P3 model also meant no other contractor was able to check each other, since it was all Crosslinx. If they separated these projects, there would be a certain degree of contractors holding each other to account because no one wants to be blamed for the issues. It was also complicated when a change needed to be made, in a P3, lots of dispute on who the cost/scope overrun falls to.
darwink
Senior Member
No. Eglinton is broken up into multiple contracts for different infrastructure bits, the vehicles, and then the TTC is operating. Its a dogs breakfast as no one wanted to stand up to the TTC operators union at the time (and no one proposed a very simple thing, requiring the operator to mirror the labour agreements of the TTC). With different designers, builders, and operators, then is little incentive to design something that is actually easy to build, and then easy to commission and run, that balances between being economic to build, maintain, and operate.
No model is perfect. Heck Ottawa with a full on P3 screwed up in its unique way! Transferred too much risk and then for the longest time refused to acknowledge that if it didn't change its tune, the P3 would go bankrupt.
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CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Can't this happen anyways? If a sub contractor can't properly weatherproof a roof that isn't exactly a failure of the procurement process, it shows poor oversight and management once the project was awarded. Like @darwink says, the provincial rail body will probably hire their own consultants. I don't know anything about this stuff but to me I think you might actually want to hire some from the other bids, to me, that would bring accountability.
trtcttc
Active Member
The same contractor is responsible for design, build, and maintenance, just not the operating which is the TTC. Blaming it on the TTC operator is quite inaccurate, considering the line cannot even open now half a decade after the original opening date, not because of operators but all the deficiencies in the build.
"Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx have named Crosslinx Transit Solutions (CTS)—a consortium of equal share partners ACS Infrastructure Canada, Aecon, EllisDon, and SNC-Lavalin—the preferred proponent to design, build, finance, and maintain the Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit (LRT)"
But it s a huge difference between finding that deficiency during the construction process instead of when the station is completely done, roads paved over, then having to re-dig a few months before opening because they found all these issues. Case in point, the stations below have been complete for years now and now they need to go back to fix it. I lived on Eglinton during most of the main construction and it was a running joke how many times they are going to dig and fill the same hole over and over.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
If the consultants miss something that is on the consultants, no? I don't know anything about this Ontario rail project but I'm hoping/expecting there's lessons learned from that.
darwink
Senior Member
Operating is not an important component? Deciding whether to run a corner at speed vs not? Is faster acceleration and breaking worth the travel time savings/labour savings for the increased maintenance cost to tracks and vehicles? Should corners be banked for speed at cost of construction? (Ottawa ran into this when the P3 partner didn't coordinate internally, and was too focused on reducing costs following the huge geotech problems they had and they redesigned to save costs with no accounting for long term problems to try to limp over the line to opening day). These are all integrated solutions that when you have partial control with partners with different incentives, its an issue.
And no. Eglinton has different contracts for the tunnel. "The agreement covers all aspects of the transit line except the tunneling" and well, the vehicles. They've also been hit by the wonder problem of scope changes and government interference.
trtcttc
Active Member
It is, but at the end of the day the public is paying for it. Transit systems that are able to deliver projects at lower cost efficiently require a good degree of in-house capabilities
"Fourth, project sponsors need to invest in internal capacity to develop well-defined projects, manage consultants and contractors, and coordinate across multiple manageably sized contract packages. Hiring consultants for specialized tasks is necessary, but failing to manage them because of a lack of staff or being wholly reliant on them is counterproductive." https://transitcosts.com/highspeed-rail-final-report/
I didn't say operating is not an important component, and if there are issues once it is operating then we can blame the operators for running a corner at speed or what not. Tracks not spaced properly, doesn't matter who's driving the trains. And I'm not really sure what this has to do with tunneling, they were awarded a contract for design, build, finance and maintain, literally the wording of the agreement and what I said. If there are issues with the vehicles or the tunneling sure, but most of the issues are construction related to work by CTS.
‘The nerve centre’: Issues with Eglinton Crosstown LRT software persist - Toronto | Globalnews.ca
By June, software meant to run trains on the route will be in its seventh iteration. The head of Ontario's transit agency said the program will be the 'nerve centre' of the LRT.
globalnews.ca
"Perhaps the single-biggest issue among a litany of problems, Verster said, is that track laid in 2021 was built outside of Metrolinx's specifications and the mistake is only now being fixed by CTS. A misstep of just a few millimetres runs the risk of a train climbing onto the tracks and derailing, Verster said.
"This is not centimetres of error, this is millimetres of error. Anyone who builds track should know that. It is unfortunate this didn't get done right," he told reporters." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/eglinton-crosstown-delays-verster-metrolinx-1.6824272