Bridges

As part of the demands of High Productivity Freight Vehicles to meet industryís pursuit of efficiency gains the Victorian and Commonwealth government shared a funding commitment to enhance the load capacity of twin bridges on the South Gippsland Freeway at Eumemmerring, 32 kilometres south-east of Melbourne. The catch was costs had to be expended within the fiscal period. Under normal circumstances this would be a difficult - but nevertheless achievable - task with good and typical administrative processes. The difficulty with the above twin bridges is they are over a suburban rail line, carry significant freeway vehicular traffic with broadening peak periods, and a strengthening design that was not complete. The challenge was set.

To complete the procurement process and provide a basis upon which to obtain meaningful and competitive construction tenders, some access parameters needed to be established with the rail operator (Metro Trains Melbourne or MTM) and also the network disruptions team at Victoriaís Department of Transport. The rail operator had some imminent windows of opportunity to ëpiggybackí off existing booked rail occupations but had strict timelines and conditions associated with considering rail access for any works.

Similarly, the ability to undertake works using freeway access had time limitations and where some synchronization with the rail operator was needed. It was immediately evident that time was not on our side. To obtain a separate dedicated and suitable rail occupation and meet all MTMís conditions would require over $3 million in cost and over 18 months in planning. Somewhere in the annals of the Apollo space missions it is said that the success of their mission had a 3% probability of success and through risk and project management techniques a successful outcome was planned. It can be argued that for the twin-bridge-strengthening project the probability of meeting all the stakeholder conditions might have been similar.