In part one of the decision-making process, the first step is to look at the complete project development process involving other disciplines or topics to determine where the bottleneck is as it relates to the project delivery timeline and what effort should be put in place to collapse the required schedules. The next step is to determine what can be done to streamline the review and permitting process to effectively move the project design forward.
The FHWA posted a manual with guidance recommending the use of a team approach with expert skill sets from several disciplines to review how best to move an ABC forward (FHWA 2005). The author served as a resource member of the FHWA Accelerated Construction Technology Transfer (ACTT) team and provided the bridge expertise service. This is a good approach when complex issues and several disciplines are involved. The project owner or manager should assemble a project team with expertise in each of the required skill set under various disciplines. To determine how quickly a project can be delivered effectively and efficiently, a detail and critical assessment is recommended for each of the following disciplines:
• Right-of-way/utilities/railroad
• Traffic engineering/safety/intelligent transportation systems (ITS) • Structures
• Innovative financing and contracting • Worker health and safety
• Geotechnical/materials/accelerated testing • Long-life pavements/maintenance
• Construction (techniques, automation, and constructability) • Environment/contest-sensitive design
• Roadway design/geometries • Public relations
7.3.1.1 Right-of-Way/Utilities/Railroad
If the right of way has yet to be acquired and if there are controversies related to the property that could delay the project schedule, they should resolve them in the project development phase. Likewise, if the utilities must be relocated, advance work must be coordinated with the utility owners so they do not interfere with the project’s critical path. If the railroad tracks are within the project scope, advance coordination with railroad officials is highly recommended. They are adamant about maintaining their freight schedules and keeping their tracks open for service at all times.
Right-of-way, utility, and railroad delays seriously impact accelerated operations. More innovative solutions are required for both short- and long-term time-sensitive construction projects. Right-of-way considerations include State laws and procedures covering acquisition and relocation, numbers and types
and improve traffic flow during and after construction. Evaluating both the construction and mainte- nance work may help assess traffic and safety issues more fully than the conventional project-by-project approach. Early assessment can result in better information to the traveling public and politicians on the relationships among crashes, delays, mobility, total traffic volume, truck traffic volumes, and the need for lane closures during construction. Implement integrated ITS to communicate construction information to motorists through radio, Internet, and wireless alerts, along with incident management systems/services.
7.3.1.3 Structures (Bridges, Retaining Walls, Culverts, and Miscellaneous)
Accelerating the construction of structures will require deviation from standard practices for design and construction and include early coordination between designers and contractors. A systems approach from the “ground up” will be necessary instead of emphasis on individual components. Prefabrication, preassembly, incremental launching, lift-in, roll-in, and so on, are systems or concepts with proven contributions to accelerating construction and should be understood and receive priority consideration. Designers have several options in structure types and materials to meet design requirements, but iden- tifying the most accommodating system while minimizing adverse project impacts should be the objec- tive. See Section 7.5 for more discussions on construction techniques.
7.3.1.4 Innovative Financing/Innovative Contracting
Align financing options with the goals of the project by matching anticipated cash flow with project management, while recognizing competing priorities for existing resources. Financing tools could include cost-sharing strategies, tolling mechanisms, contractor financing, leveraging techniques, credit assistance, and cost management and containment concepts. Explore state-of-the art contracting practices and obtain a better knowledge of how these techniques could be selected, organized, and assembled to match the specific situations needed on this project. Techniques to be considered include performance-related specifications, warranties, design-build (DB), maintain, operate, cost plus time, partnering escalation agreements, lane rental, incentive/disincentives, value engineering (VE), and any other innovative contracting techniques that would apply to the project. See Section 7.4 for more discussions on contracting strategies.
7.3.1.5 Worker Health and Safety
When handling hazardous materials or toxic substances, it is advisable to bring in the experts who are familiar with regulations and worker’s health and safety. This will ensure proper permits and manifests are put in place. Workers are to be monitored with blood tests and physical examinations preconstruc- tion and postconstruction. Depending on the duration of the job, monitoring of worker’s health might be needed during the construction.
7.3.1.6 Geotechnical/Materials/Accelerated Testing
Subsurface conditions and issues should be explored to assess their impacts on the project. Based on the topography and geography where a project is located, subsurface investigation may be complicated by traffic volume, environmental hazards, utilities, railroad property, and right-of-way. Pursue options
maximum freedom to determine the appropriate methodology. Explore the future maintenance issues on the project including winter services, traffic operations, preventative maintenance, and any other concerns that may impact the operation of the project features.
7.3.1.8 Construction (Techniques, Automation, and Constructability)
Accelerated construction may press the contractor to deliver a quality product in confined time frames and areas, while maintaining traffic. Completion milestones and maintenance and protection of traffic are key elements visible to the traveling public. Allowing contractors to have input on design elements that would impact time or quality during construction can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall project completion. The use of automation to enhance construction equipment performance, construction engineering and surveying, data collection and documentation, and contract administra- tion should be explored and implemented.
7.3.1.9 Environment/Context-Sensitive Design
Scope-of-work and construction activities need to reflect environmental concerns to ensure the most accommodating and cost-effective product while minimizing natural and socioeconomic impacts. Context-sensitive design allows early coordination and conversation with various stakeholders and interest group to incorporate concerns and resolutions.
7.3.1.10 Roadway/Geometric Design
Highway geometrics can greatly impact project funds and integrity. Although designers may have sev- eral options meeting design standard requirements, identifying the most accommodating product while minimizing adverse impacts should be the objective.
7.3.1.11 Public Relations
The vast majority of our nation’s highway projects involve reconstruction of existing facilities under or adjacent to traffic. It is imperative to partner with local entities and effectively inform the communities and the traveling public to minimize construction delays as well as adverse socioeconomic impacts. Utah’s first experience in 2007 with ABC has been such a big success with the public that thousands of spectators showed up to watch the first of their weekend bridge erection. The ABC event was captured and made the evening news on several local and national broadcasts. The public support was tremen- dous and the UDOT garnished stronger support from their state legislation.
7.3.2 Part 2: ABC Decision-Making Framework
The second part of the decision-making process is when the bridge construction is on the critical path, the project team would decide which of the most effective method of construction should be used to deliver the project. Initially, ABC was largely driven by the industry at a time when owners promot- ing DB contracting method began to delegate more process and product controls to the contractors.
behavior of the structure and its components are being affected by the method of construction to ensure their long-term structural capacity and performance. By specifying the construction method, the owner has some control in limiting the stresses in the bridge and its components.
Contractors must make a profit to stay in business, and owners want contractors to stay in business to compete on future bridge projects. Accelerating bridge projects allows contractors to complete more projects in a given amount of time, which should increase the contractor’s profits. Bridge owners must share the risks inherent with innovation and help the contractors to be successful on these projects.
Careful planning, design, and implementation are required to realize the significant advantages of prefabricated bridge construction. Decision makers must consider if the job should be fast-tracked, the applicability of the design, the abilities of contractors and suppliers in the target market, access to the project site, and how the construction requirements affect cost and schedule. Other important factors for success of an accelerated bridge project include the owner’s and contractor’s commitment to see the job through; willingness to share responsibility, control, and risk; and understanding that time is money for all stakeholders. Owners should be able to expect reasonable cost, durable, and fast construction, allowing them to get more projects within available budgets, whereas contractors should be able to make a reasonable profit and have more bidding opportunities.
The author had managed a research project to develop a framework for the objective consideration of the above-mentioned issues when he was employed by the FHWA. The framework is a qualitative decision-making tool to help engineers answer the ultimate question of whether a prefabricated bridge is achievable and effective for a specific bridge location. The framework can be used at various levels of detail in the decision-making process. There are three formats published in this report—a flowchart, a matrix, and a narrative discussion of the various considerations in the decision process. The flowchart (Figure 7.1) serves to guide a high-level assessment of whether a prefabricated bridge is an economical and effective choice for the specific bridge under consideration. The matrix (Figure 7.2) provides the users with a series of Yes–No and Maybe statements that has more elaborations than the flowchart. The narrative section consists of considerations in various categories corresponding to those in the flow- chart and matrix, with discussions and references for use in making a more in-depth evaluation on the use of prefabrication. The flowchart, matrix, and considerations section may be used independently or in combination, depending on the user’s desired depth of evaluation. The FHWA (2006) published this decision-making framework and is available free of charge on their web site at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ bridge/prefab/pubs.cfm.
The author is involved with a newly developed software tool known as ABC Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Decision Tool, and it allows a decision maker and the project team to provide quantita- tive values or weighted criteria to determine the utility values of different alternatives. More discussion of this tool is provided in Section 7.3.4.
7.3.3 UDOT (Utah) Decision Making for ABC Projects
UDOT implements ABC as a standard practice for project delivery, efficiency, and fast-track construc- tion. From their initial success in delivering ABC projects, UDOT adopted some lofty goals or themes for all the project decision in Utah. These themes capitalize on accelerating project delivery, minimizing