Supporting Information to the Independent Expert Panel on the
6. Mitigation and Recovery by MTRCL
6.3. Test Event 2: Review of Process followed in the Development of the Minimum Operating Requirement at West Kowloon Terminus
533. In July 2012, MTRCL's monthly XRL Project Progress Report was reporting 51.8 weeks delay for Contract 811B and commenced reporting delay on a “target” programme” of 8 weeks’ delay.
In December 2012, MTRCL's monthly XRL Project Progress Report was reporting 30.7 weeks’
delay for Contract 810A, and commenced that month to report delays of 2.2 weeks on a “target”
programme. It does not report details of these “target” programmes to understand whether these met a 2015 opening date for West Kowloon Terminus.
534. On 17 April 2013, the contractor for Contract 810A informed MTRCL that it could no longer achieve a 2015 completion as it presented 519 its programme to completion of its works showing a completion date for Whole of the Works completion of 30 June 2016.
535. MTRCL produced an internal TRIP summary diagram in May 2013 520 that indicated a Degree 1 milestone of end of September 2015. It also showed that trial running was planned to be complete before track and OHL first fix was planned to be complete for Contract 810A, although it did not explain how this could be achieved. The diagram showed no time allowance for testing and commissioning for contracts 826, 820, 811A and 811B, when it is understood a minimum of six months was required. 521 We understand from MTRCL that the purpose of this TRIP was to demonstrate where the problem areas existed rather than forecasting the Project completion.
536. A presentation was given to the Projects Director on 7 June 2013 522 which advised that Contract 810A had the latest forecast Degree 1 track access date of September 2015 for the XRL Project and MTRCL stated this contract was critical. 523 It indicated that a December 2015 opening date was still possible but was only based on a Minimum Operating Requirement approach.
MTRCL’s presentation explained that this phased opening would still provide passenger services in 2015, but only six long-haul tracks (track numbers four to nine) would be operational. A TRIP in this presentation showed that the tracks planned to be opened for the Minimum Operating Requirement (numbers four to nine) were forecast to achieve Degree 1 track access by April 2015, whereas all other tracks planned to achieve Degree 1 access by September 2015.
517 Refer to Figure 2 and Figure 3 of this report
518 Contract 823A Contractor’s Monthly Report, April 2013
519 MTR XRL Contract 810A, programme to complete, 17 April 2013
520 Express Rail Link Programme Status, presentation to the Projects Director, 7 June 2013
521 Interview with MTRCL’s E&M General Manager, 14 August 2014: Confirmed that he would never compress the nine months for testing, commissioning and trial running because it was safety-critical
522 Express Rail Link Programme Status, presentation to the Projects Director ,7 June 2013
523 MTRCL’s Chief Planning Engineer confirmed on 20 June 2013 that Contract 810A was critical to the XRL Project.
537. In MTRCL's monthly XRL Project Report of June 2013, MTRCL indicated a reduction in the reported delay of both Contract 811B and Contract 810A against “target” programmes. In Contract 811B, delay reduced from a peak in April 2013 of 17.8 weeks to 1.5 weeks in June 2013. In Contract 810A, it was reduced from a peak of 7.1 weeks in April 2013 to 1.9 weeks in June 2013. It continued to report escalating delay against original programmes.
538. MTRCL first proposed the Minimum Operating Requirement to Railway Development Office at a presentation 524 on 13 September 2013 in which MTRCL confirmed that the six priority tracks for the Minimum Operating Requirement would be handed over to the trackwork contractor by April 2015 and that the Minimum Operating Requirement opening date was December 2015.
Railway Development Office did not approve or reject this proposal. 525 The presentation offers no explanation as to how MTRCL could complete all trackwork, E&M and nine months’ 521 testing, commissioning and trial running between April 2015 and December 2015.
539. MTRCL’s Chief Planning Engineer emailed the Projects Director on 11 October 2013 to state that several contracts had been further delayed since the previous programme presentation 520 of 7 June 2013 and consequently “[c]learly commencement of Dynamic Testing and hence opening will be affected.” The Chief Planning Engineer stated that based on past production data, it was evident that several contracts had not and would not achieve planned production outputs. He stated that he had started preparation of the data for a detailed Programme Risk Assessment using a Monte-Carlo simulation. It is not clear to us whether this was completed.
540. The Projects Director responded on the same day 526 stating “I am concern[ed] about XRL now reaching a point of impossibility for [the] end [of] 2015”.
541. MTRCL developed a TRIP 527, dated 31 October 2013, which showed that Degree 1 track access could be achieved for Contract 810A by the end of July 2015 for the six priority tracks and the completion of TRIP and “OHL power on” at the end of September 2015. MTRCL has separately advised that a period of nine months 521 is required for testing, commissioning and trial running, which would indicate a forecast track operation date of the XRL Project in June 2016.
542. This TRIP did not indicate other forecast dates for the follow-on platforms, but the access date was consistent with the Degree 1 access dates shown in the presentation to Railway Development Office on 13 September 2013 for the six long-haul platforms under Minimum Operating Requirement. The same TRIP was included in MTRCL’s Schedule Risk Assessment of 19 December 2013 527 which was distributed to the Projects Director and the General Managers for the Project Team.
543. The Projects Director emailed the General Managers of the XRL Project and the Chief Programming Engineer on 11 November 2013 stating “I have had a number of occasions trying to come to some clearer understanding with all the progress and challenges associated with XRL.
But I have totally failed.” He asked “[i]s Dec[ember] 2015 real or not” and requested the General Manager for XRL to consult with the senior team and revert back to him.
524 Express Rail Link Programme Status, 13 September 2013
525 LegCo Paper, pg. 20, May 2014
526 Email from the Projects Director to MTRCL’s Chief Planning Engineer, 11 October 2013
527 MTRCL’s Schedule Risk Assessments, issued by the Chief Programming Engineer on 19 November 2013: Included a TRIP summary programme (dated 31 October 2013)
544. The Chief Programming Engineer of MTRCL stated by email on 14 November 2013 “I’m so sorry I do not have any good news for you. We need a major turnaround of events on 810A to open to Public MOR in mid 2016”. 528 It appears that at this time MTRCL’s Chief Programming Engineer recognised, that even with the Minimum Operating Requirement, the earliest the railway could be operational was mid-2016.
545. The contractor for Contract 810A continued to report that the Minimum Operating Requirement scheme was in development with MTRCL, between November 2013 and February 2014 and that it was developing several programmes in support of the overall Minimum Operating Requirement programme. 529
546. We have had sight of a programme 530 that we understand was developed by the contractor for Contract 810A, in support of the Minimum Operating Requirement which was dated 1 December 2013, but it is not clear when this programme was provided to MTRCL. The programme included completion milestones which differentiated the scope of works which were required for the Minimum Operating Requirement from the remaining scope for Contract 810A. A completion milestone was included in the programme labelled “COMPLETE MOR TRACKS T5-T8” 531 which was planned to be completed on 29 February 2016. Several activities were planned to be completed in order to achieve this milestone and the latest planned completion of these predecessors were activities in the north top-down area. Subsequent to this completion milestone
531 in the programme was a 15-month activity 532 to enable the completion of the permanent way, overhead lines, power, communications, signalling and testing and commissioning which were all planned to be completed on 31 May 2017.
547. In February 2014, the contractor for Contract 810A indicated to MTRCL that there would be no track access until June 2016 for the prioritised tracks included in the Minimum Operating Requirement. 533
528 Email from MTRCL’s Chief Planning Engineer to the Projects Director, 14 November 2013
529 Contract 810A Contractor’s Monthly Report: November 2013, December 2013, January 2014 and February 2014
530 Programme title: XRL_L2_MOR_Rev_B (810A XRL TERMINUS – Level 2/3 MOR Programme (*review in conjunction with engineering assumptions)), 1 December 2013
531 Full activity description: “COMPLETE MOR TRACKS T5-T8 AREAS OTE DUCTS & REMOVE SCAFFOLDS,”
activity ID: 1017
532 Full activity description: “T5-T8 - PWAY/OHL/T_Power/Comms/Signaling/T&C - 15 months period following OTE completion, as advised by MTR),” activity ID: KD03
533 LegCo Paper, pg. 22, May 2014