Road Building time, decent way to calculate estimate of good performance

veryangryman

Just looking at recent projects...

M6 Galway-ballinasloe (56KM) took ~2 years for a road involving decent number of obstacles both physical and treehugger.

Newlands Cross (500M??) also planned to take same length of time, albeit on a very busy stretch.

Is there a decent way to measure if the estimates/actual completions from the contractor are satisfactory. I imagine the gov do some research into this before signing the cheques (or maybe not..)

Frank Black

veryangryman wrote: »

Just looking at recent projects...

M6 Galway-ballinasloe (56KM) took ~2 years for a road involving decent number of obstacles both physical and treehugger.

Newlands Cross (500M??) also planned to take same length of time, albeit on a very busy stretch.

Is there a decent way to measure if the estimates/actual completions from the contractor are satisfactory. I imagine the gov do some research into this before signing the cheques (or maybe not..)

There is a period specified in the contract determining the timeframe the Contractor has to bring the scheme to substantial completion. These timeframes are calculated based on the amount of work envisaged when the contract/tender is drawn up. During construction, the Contractor may be awarded 'Delay', or an extension to the date he has to achieve substantial completion, due to unforeseen circumstances which were not apparent at the time of contract signing.
If the contractor fails to achieve substantial completion by the specified date, liquidated damages may be applied. These are a fixed penalty (e.g. €5K per day) which can be deducted from the money due to the contractor.

L1011

You can't compare a new-build motorway to an urban junction reconstruction that will require temporary roads, traffic management, noise abatment/working hours restrictions due to the nearby hotels and houses, etc, etc. Just because they both end up with tarmac at the end doesn't mean the processes are that similar.

antoobrien

veryangryman wrote: »

Just looking at recent projects...

M6 Galway-ballinasloe (56KM) took ~2 years for a road involving decent number of obstacles both physical and treehugger.

The complexity of problems faced by these two projects are a very different kettle of fish. The traffic management faced by the M6 were fairly easy to solve whereas the NX upgrade works will revolve around traffic management rather than the technical work.

A fairer comparison would be the mess that was the SQR project in Galway - 1.6km of urban road with several junctions to manage - which went on for about 3 years instead of two.

IIRC the N4 upgrade at Lucan went though on time (took about 2 years - coincidence?), so the lessons that were learned there should be useful to NX.

veryangryman

MYOB wrote: »

You can't compare a new-build motorway to an urban junction reconstruction that will require temporary roads, traffic management, noise abatment/working hours restrictions due to the nearby hotels and houses, etc, etc. Just because they both end up with tarmac at the end doesn't mean the processes are that similar.

I agree.

Still there must be some maths to it.

Like (say) a new junction on existing road takes X times how busy the road is (where X is the amount of weeks) etc

or

For each bridge to be built, add 6 months to it (depending on length)

And so forth.



I just find it strange that no rough figures/calculations are out there. For all we know, we could be paying through the nose for something

Frank Black

veryangryman wrote: »

I agree.

Still there must be some maths to it.

Like (say) a new junction on existing road takes X times how busy the road is (where X is the amount of weeks) etc

or

For each bridge to be built, add 6 months to it (depending on length)

And so forth.



I just find it strange that no rough figures/calculations are out there. For all we know, we could be paying through the nose for something

Why do you think the payment is linked to the time for completion.
The jobs you're talking about are competitively tendered.
The price 'we' the tax payer pay per km of motorway in Ireland is about average within the EU. This is despite the fact that land acquisition costs for the inter-urban motorways was the highest in the EU.
The fact is the 'tax-payer' get extremely good value from private sector Contractors and Designers for these large infrastructural projects and pretty poor value (imo) from the public sector side.

Chris_5339762

Frank Black wrote: »

Why do you think the payment is linked to the time for completion.

It used to be. There were early completion bonuses in the boom, possibly part of the reason why we're getting bridge subsidence in a few spots along the motorways.

Carawaystick

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

It used to be. There were early completion bonuses in the boom, possibly part of the reason why we're getting bridge subsidence in a few spots along the motorways.

There were early completion bonuses on the northern part of the M11 and the Arklow bypass part of the M11

not just a celtic tiger thing

However,
there has been a slowdown on recent road building, such as the M1 widening, N2/3 link or the R132 dualling at the threshold of runway 28 in eidw.

Victor

A few important factors

1. How much time will it take to build the most complicated element (typically bridges)? Everything else is scalable. If you have two projects, one 10km and the other 20km and neither has any element more complicated than the other, then they should be completed in much the same time. That said, the larger the project, the more complicated potential delays can be.

2. Projects will tend to take X man hours to build. In a rural location, you can probably build for 18 hours per day in the middle of summer. You are unlikely to be able to do that in an urban location.

3. Working on an existing road is much more complicated than working in a green-field location.

4. Once you start digging, there's no telling what might be unearthed

antoobrien

Deleted User wrote: »

4. Once you start digging, there's no telling what might be unearthed

As was found out in at least two of the recent projects in Galway.

Todd Toddington III

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

It used to be. There were early completion bonuses in the boom, possibly part of the reason why we're getting bridge subsidence in a few spots along the motorways.

Subsidence happens regardless on new road builds, nothing to do with with cutting corners to meet a deadline. Particularly prevalent at the edge of bridge decks. Eventually it usually stops sinking and can be properly repaired