Home | Get In, Get Out, Stay Out—Accelerating Design and Construction

Get In, Get Out, Stay Out—Accelerating Design and Construction

In the earliest years of highway development, the design and construction phase represented the bulk of project cost, as well as time. Now pre-construction activities represent the longest part of project development, but the time required for construction, and the associated disruption and safety concerns, remain major issues. This is particularly true of projects located in built-up areas along existing transportation facilities, which are almost always expected to remain in service during construction.

A Transportation Research Board conference in 1998 on expediting construction captured what has become the guiding principle in terms of minimizing the disruptive impacts of construction and maintenance activities to travelers and communities: “Get In, Get Out, Stay Out.” These six little words communicate volumes about the charge to the transportation community to expedite construction.

The potential benefits of accelerating construction, as well as accelerating the detailed design that drives construction, are very significant—to transportation users, to affected communities and businesses, to most contractors, and to the sponsoring agencies. These benefits are why there has been so much innovation in recent years, as reflected in current practices as well as the opportunities to meet the compelling challenge of getting it done faster without compromising quality or busting budgets.

There are many practices that have facilitated the acceleration of design and construction, including:

  • Expediting Environmental Permitting and Project Agreements  

  • Application of Advanced Technologies

  • Peer-Based Approaches for Sharing Advances,

  • Prefabrication of Structural Elements

  • Improved Materials and

  • Alternative Construction Schedules.

Hyperfix Sets New Standard for Urban Interstate Renovation

In 2003, the Indiana Department of Transportation faced up to a public-safety task that could not be avoided: making major renovations to a section of center-city Indianapolis highway known as I-65/I-70. The work would ordinarily have taken 180–200 days over two construction seasons, with individual lanes closed off and resulting congestion and work-zone safety issues. And the road, which carried 175,000 cars per weekday, was even more heavily used by fans of the major events taking place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including the Indianapolis 500.

Indiana Department of Transportation officials pondered how to get the work done in a tighter time frame.

They concluded that very rapid work could be done, with high quality, but only if the road could be closed completely to public traffic, so work could go on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. State DOT officials decided to go that direction, and began the massive planning, public-information campaigning, and preparation to reduce congestion and inconvenience to the area’s motorists as much as possible. They dubbed the project “Hyperfix.”

Months prior to the closure of the road, Indiana DOT worked closely with the city of Indianapolis to improve local roads that would be designated as detours for the closed highway. New signs were posted, and radio and TV ads were prepared to get the word out to the traveling public about the work ahead. Work started on May 26—the day after the Indy 500—and was done in 55 days, 30 days ahead of schedule.

Hyperfix:

  • Added up to 15 years of service life to the improved roadway;

  • Rehabilitated 33 bridge decks and pavement on about 35 lane-miles of highway, and extended merge lanes to help curtail traffic congestion;

  • Significantly increased safety for the construction workers on the project, and for members of the driving public who didn’t have to run the gauntlet of a work zone;

  • Saved Indiana taxpayers more than $1 million in lost wages and productivity for each day that traditional construction would have added to the project.

Continual communications were offered through a website, electronic dynamic message signs, and by putting project representatives in touch with the public via e-mail. There were also stakeholder, neighborhood, and community meetings, and citizens could sign up to get project updates via e-mail.

Overcoming Stovepipes and Silos

One of the greatest challenges that remains involves the compartmentalization of organizations, disciplines, rule-making, and processes. This compartmentalization—also known as silos or stove pipes—presents a formidable barrier.

Yet, contrary to much of the popular management literature, the elimination of silos and stove pipes is not the answer either. In fact, the consequences of this approach may be even more dire. In an age of technical sophistication and specialization, concentrations of expertise in technically-focused disciplines and organizational elements are necessary—even beneficial. The question is not whether to have compartments, but when and how they connect.

The ability to strike a balance between concentrations of expertise that seem to drive the formation of silos, and the need to build open and well-utilized lines of communication among them, is perhaps the greatest challenge to achieving high performance organizations and the impressive outcomes that they can produce. The key is greater integration through the use of teams that collaborate early and often.

Recommendation: Integrated Approach Can Speed Delivery

  • Fragmentation of the project delivery process must be reduced, particularly in the legislative and regulatory areas. Statutory language should promote the need for greater integration of the stages, phases, and activities that are involved in project delivery, and ensure that Federal requirements don’t inadvertently inhibit the efficient delivery of transportation projects.

A more integrated approach for detailed design and construction can be fostered by the following approached.

Early Collaboration. It is not coincidental that every “innovative” approach to project delivery, such as design-build, construction manager/general contractor, or alliance contracting, involves measures which integrate construction issues into the detailed design process. Quite often, these innovative approaches also employ collaboration between the planning and environmental disciplines and construction managers who can (and should) have a voice that will influence a project from concept to implementation.

Simultaneous Instead of Sequential. Another huge opportunity for project acceleration involves performing certain activities concurrently, in an overlapping manner, instead of one after the other as is so common. There can be some legitimacy to proceeding one step at a time if outcomes of preceding steps are uncertain and the consequences of going down the wrong path are severe. However, this decision is strictly a question of risk management. More often than not, over the life of a project, some degree of concurrent or overlapping processing would offer significant time savings at relatively modest risk. This is particularly true in the detailed design/construction stage where the record of decision has been made and the focus is on achieving a “built project.” Yet, in traditional design–bid–build procurement, this is not occurring.

Performance Contracting. Performance contracting allows the agency to define specific goals they want to achieve in their construction projects, such as smoothness, strength, and durability, while allowing the private sector to determine the methods used, including innovations to accomplish these goals that save time and money without compromising quality. FHWA has recently developed a performance contracting framework for a typical reconstruction/rehabilitation project, which can be used as a reference guide, helping owner agencies to accelerate the solicitation and development process while avoiding common obstacles and pitfalls.

SHRP2. One of the four Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) focus areas is “Renewal of Infrastructure,” and second-to-none in priority within this broad category is doing it faster. Research topics already launched will address:

  • Managing Risks on Rapid Renewal Contracts;

  • High-Speed, Non-Destructive Testing Procedures; and

  • Rapid Embankment Construction.

Research is continually needed to assist in the development of the next generation of design and construction techniques that will allow for faster, better, and higher quality construction.

In summary, there are numerous challenges and opportunities to accelerate project delivery by improving the detailed design and construction phases. The majority of highway construction now takes place on existing facilities that are exposed to traffic; thus, improvements in safety, cost, and speedy delivery must go hand in hand.

Opening the Door to Innovative Contracting and Public–Private Partnerships

Until relatively recently, the traditional design–bid–build approach to contracting for highway construction was virtually universal. It still remains pervasive, but the experimentation and innovation in contracting practices that has occurred over the past 10 years has been extraordinary, and it continues, offering significant opportunities for the acceleration of project delivery. This innovation and experimentation was made possible, in part, as a result of a Federal provision known as Special Experimental Projects (SEP) 14, which focuses on Innovative Contracting, permitting variations from the traditional approach on a case-by-case basis. It was SEP-14 that enabled the introduction of new approaches such as A + B (cost-plus-time) bidding, lane rental, and design-build, which have become state-of-the-practice tools for accelerating construction.

Perhaps the most significant provision of SEP-14 is that it allowed competitive construction submittals to be rated by the contracting agency on factors such as design quality, timeliness, management capability, and cost for the purpose of awarding the contract. This permitted the application of design-build contracting for the first time in the United States, in which the contract could be awarded based upon what is characterized as “best value” rather than the lowest bid. This program also opened the door for an array of variations in contracting methods, as well as for the private sector to play a partnership role in terms of sharing risks and providing financial resources.

There is widespread acceptance that design-build and the many variations of innovative contracting that continue to evolve have the potential to (and frequently do) save a significant amount of time. The essence of design-build is that the team responsible for construction has significant responsibility for design. Under SAFETEA-LU, and consistent with approaches common internationally, the team may well have some responsibilities for addressing planning and environmental issues as well, while the sponsoring agencies retain responsibility for defining policy objectives, performance requirements, and the environmental phase record of decision.

A more recent FHWA provision issued in 2004, SEP-15 (“Explore Alternative and Innovative Approaches to the Overall Project Development Process”) transcends SEP-14 toward more pro-active fostering of public–private partnerships (PPPs) and earlier involvement of private-sector teams to assist with environmental requirements, right-of-way acquisition, and project finance. Although debates continue over various arrangements for private-sector involvement in financing improvements, leasing, and long-term operational management, many of the innovative contracting methods employed under PPPs are available under more conventional funding.

As private-sector investment in transportation increases, it is likely that the private sector will take on an increasing role not only in operations and maintenance, but also in project development. The increasing role of private partners in project development—including the NEPA process—will require a re-thinking of traditional roles. Currently, most Federal and state regulatory requirements that apply to the letting and construction of transportation projects were established primarily for the design–bid–build process. Thus, as we explore newer project delivery methods, these traditional requirements must be reviewed to determine their applicability in new procurement environments.

 

Get In, Get Out, Stay Out—Accelerating Design and Construction >>