Roading Infrastructure Nonsense

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nickb800

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#2670277 8-Mar-2021 20:10

PolicyGuy:
Benoire:

Not necessarily. Chipseal is on average 4 times cheaper than ashpalt with 1/2 the design life. As long as the road pavement underneath is sound and putting 0 shear on the formation (foundations of the road) from the axle loads then generally chipseal is a more cost effective surface

Chipseal has 1/2 the design life of hotmix if it's done right.

A few years ago , two major suburban roads in Paraparaumu were re-sealed in chipseal.
Piles of chips formed along the road edges, and then the Council was inundated with completely justifiable complaints about paint chips,wrecked gardens, expensive driveways littered with chips & tar, footpaths being too dangerous for children or Mums with pushchairs, etc.
After a few weeks, the contractor re-sealed the whole lot, with little more success than their first catastrophe.
Eventually, the whole lot - kilometres of it - was dug up and redone in hotmix

The best bit was that ratepayers got an asphalt surface for the price of a chipseal surface - the contractor wore the cost as it was their chipsealing efforts that failed

Handle9

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#2670283 8-Mar-2021 20:21

nickb800:
PolicyGuy:

Chipseal has 1/2 the design life of hotmix if it's done right.

A few years ago , two major suburban roads in Paraparaumu were re-sealed in chipseal.
Piles of chips formed along the road edges, and then the Council was inundated with completely justifiable complaints about paint chips,wrecked gardens, expensive driveways littered with chips & tar, footpaths being too dangerous for children or Mums with pushchairs, etc.
After a few weeks, the contractor re-sealed the whole lot, with little more success than their first catastrophe.
Eventually, the whole lot - kilometres of it - was dug up and redone in hotmix

The best bit was that ratepayers got an asphalt surface for the price of a chipseal surface - the contractor wore the cost as it was their chipsealing efforts that failed

While that seems like a good thing it's really not. One of the reasons NZTA is struggling to get contractors is the relative risk to reward, particularly in lowest conforming tender procurement.

Large scale construction works on incredibly thin margins and requires a contractor to take on unlimited liability. This makes it a relatively unattractive proposition unless the contractor has some form of vertical integration.

There needs to be some form of moral hazard but good contractors need to make a decent profit. They aren't procured that way so it becomes a self fulfilling cycle of screw ups.

Benoire

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#2670299 8-Mar-2021 20:59

Ah yes lowest conforming tender, we use that as our primary procurement model too and its hideous... why do we not get quality, well thats because our suppliers are rushing to the bottom to beat the competition!

D1023319

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#2674720 15-Mar-2021 09:22

Handle9:

Clyde went 50% over budget and generates 25% under design capacity.

It's a classic infrastructure project gone bad.

In all seriousness complex infrastructure projects routinely go pear shaped everywhere. The reasons are fairly complex but usually it's a client side issue that flows down through the entire project.

I would not say it went bad - cost overruns on construction like this frequent is due to unknowns but at the end of the day they produced a outcome that is still delivering clean green sustainable power to NZ. Its a pity they never built the other dams.
Totally unlike NZTA fit for purpose or even future proof decisions.

Id also add at least the Min of Works was a good training ground for NZ workers and their pricing provided a benchmark for assessing contractors cost and performance.

D1023319

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#2674728 15-Mar-2021 09:31

Benoire:

Ah yes lowest conforming tender, we use that as our primary procurement model too and its hideous... why do we not get quality, well thats because our suppliers are rushing to the bottom to beat the competition!

Picking the lowest conforming tender has no reflection on quality.
Where theres issues it normally because of poor project management by the business owner where they either stuffed up the requirements or they fail to undertake performance monitoring during the service delivery.
Sadly much of this is due to these roles being occupied by academic graduates with limited practical experience rather than work face workers that learnt on the job as used to happen in the past.

Benoire

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#2674784 15-Mar-2021 11:37

D1023319:

Benoire:

Ah yes lowest conforming tender, we use that as our primary procurement model too and its hideous... why do we not get quality, well thats because our suppliers are rushing to the bottom to beat the competition!

Picking the lowest conforming tender has no reflection on quality.
Where theres issues it normally because of poor project management by the business owner where they either stuffed up the requirements or they fail to undertake performance monitoring during the service delivery.
Sadly much of this is due to these roles being occupied by academic graduates with limited practical experience rather than work face workers that learnt on the job as used to happen in the past.

I believe it does, I have worked for large multinational construction firms in the UK and I currently work as a senior manager in the design advisory and standards space of a large transportation agency for Auckland. I have seen the push by suppliers to win jobs at ANY cost as the client is only interested in the money and the not the quality, as a result over time the quality drops away as the good people leave to get better jobs elsewhere. Lowest price conforming means the only outcome worth the focus on is cost and how cheap you can do it, quality becomes less important and so things like Asset data in to RAMM suffers, inspections just arn't as comprehensive as they used to be, reliance on labourers and cheaper staff to do the inspections. If quality was really of interest then PQM tender approaches would still be the norm.

Yes, you are correct the senior roles do not play a direct part in day to day ops but instead they are spread far and wide trying to avoid charging too much to the project in case it eats their margins, which in construction is alreday very low. Its an international problem.

freitasm

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#2695151 20-Apr-2021 08:54

allan:

Wellington specific, but: what's with the completely idiotic decision by NZTA not to build a slip road at what will be the new Transmission Gully/SH1 interchange because apparently they couldn't find a contractor to build it!!! What sort of excuse is that? Do we never build infrastructure properly in this country? Instead they are saying "they are looking at other options to ensure safety at the merge point, including variable message signs and CCTV cameras".

This is the Wellington "Smart Motorway" debacle all over again and some years before that, the SH2 River Road bypass being build as as two lane road that then had to have passing lanes tacked onto it immediately afterwards.

This is going to be a shambles.

From a press release issued today:

The Transmission Gully Interim Review has found serious flaws at the planning stage of the project, undermining the successful completion of the four-lane motor north of Wellington Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Transport Minister Michael Wood said.

Grant Robertson said the review found the public-private partnership (PPP) established under the last National government lacked the proper rigour and consideration.

“The focus of the review was how the project was awarded for the agreed price, whether the price was realistic, and whether the risks then identified were appropriately considered.

“The review found there was a lack of transparency as to how key PPP decisions were being made, less than ideal consenting risk management, a non-PPP scheme design used in the PPP procurement, and the price was set far too low from the beginning.

“Obviously this was not a recipe for success and I’ve asked the Infrastructure Commission Te Waihanga to revise New Zealand’s PPP guidance to make sure any future PPPs don’t encounter the same issues.

“There have also been other issues and cost overruns during Transmission Gully’s construction and Wellingtonians’ deserve answers. That’s why we’ve directed Te Waihanga to undertake a further review of the project after construction has been completed,” Grant Robertson said.

Michael Wood said the Government is committed to learning the lessons from Transmission Gully.

“Waka Kotahi and Te Waihanga will implement the recommendations from the review. We are making sure taxpayers and future governments aren’t left with similar messes like the one we inherited.

“Waka Kotahi is already learning from its experiences on Transmission Gully and actively applying lessons to other projects. It will report back to the Ministry of Transport and myself on how it’s implementing the recommendations of the review,” Michael Wood said.

The independent review was undertaken by Steve Richards, who has more than 25 years' experience supporting the Australian federal and state governments on major road and rail projects. He was supported locally by Sir Michael Cullen and Lindsay Crossen and the review was overseen by Te Waihanga.

Reviewers examined records held by the Treasury, Ministry of Transport and Waka Kotahi, as well as interviewing 25 people from a range of organisations involved in setting up the PPP.

The full Transmission Gully Interim Review can be read on the Te Waihanga website.

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Geektastic

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#2695195 20-Apr-2021 10:56

To be honest I sometimes wonder if we would be better served contracting out the entirety of the road network construction and maintenance to the Japanese or the Germans...

driller2000

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#2695229 20-Apr-2021 12:11

Geektastic:

To be honest I sometimes wonder if we would be better served contracting out the entirety of the road network construction and maintenance to the Japanese or the Germans...

As others nave noted - far too often procurement processes are driven by price - whether LPC or alt eval methods/weightings that are skewed or can be manipulated towards price.

Our contractors/designers can do good work, if clients are prepared to pay for it and put Quality as their top criteria - but they usually don't.

As for international suppliers doing a better job - yes/no/maybe - as EVERY country has examples of projects that have gone wrong - for various reasons.

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/perspectives/centurys-most-troublesome-construction-pr8oje8ct8s/

frankv

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#2695271 20-Apr-2021 13:31

driller2000:

Our contractors/designers can do good work, if clients are prepared to pay for it and put Quality as their top criteria - but they usually don't.

Cheap, soon, good -- choose any two.

wellygary

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#2695280 20-Apr-2021 13:51

Geektastic:

To be honest I sometimes wonder if we would be better served contracting out the entirety of the road network construction and maintenance to the Japanese or the Germans...

The Problem is there is no political agreement on what infrastructure is wanted/needed, and thus there is no smooth pipeline

NZTA do what they can with 3 yearly fuel tax funding,- which is basically used for maintenance and small scale projects,

All the big stuff ends up coming courtesy of special funding ( currently its the NZ upgrade project) , This turns up when politics demands projects, (last government it was RoNS,)

NZ has lots of small construction companies, so to scale up for big projects requires the head contractors - Fletchers/HEB/etc to pull in lots of subbies, this takes time and effort, then at the end of the project all the subbies have to go and find other work...

If for example NZTA was given 20 year funding commitments to upgrade SH1 or something, it could then provide long term certainty to local companies to bulk up permanently or via specialist long term contractors, rather than operating on a project by project sub contractor basis,

Benoire

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#2695282 20-Apr-2021 13:59

In Auckland, ATAP was designed to give a 3y guaranteed programme, 10y indicative and 30y horizon... the problem however is that a) climate change has messed with its original intent, b) governmental changes and subsequent collitions have made further changes, c) Council was never really aligned to it, it was really an NZTA/MOT document that forced AC/AT in to a corner through the funding mechanisms.

Ideally we should return to a 30y transport strategy and then bulk fund the regions on an 10y basis so they can choose the priorities and setup a pipeline of work that contractors can actually build comptency and resources for rather than this annual / 3y merry go round.

Geektastic

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#2702077 5-May-2021 09:33

I once called into our local council to complain about the road outside the house that had been being repaired for months.

“We’re waiting for the road marking company to fit it in. “

“You mean the company that did the road doesn’t own a machine to put back the lines?”

“No.”

“Well I hope the penalty for late completion in the contract is significant.”

“Oh, we don’t use that kind of contract.”

“Well perhaps you should. You might get the work done in a more timely manner.”

Etc

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