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CHAPTER 3 Project Objective Why R16B, Tools for Communicating RailroadâDOT Mitigation Strategies? Transportation agencies and railroad companies nationwide have been struggling with the loss of institutional knowledge. This loss has resulted from downsizing over the past decade and the large-scale retirement of experienced personnel from the baby boom generation. Although these organizations are attempting to mitigate this loss through promotions and new hiring, many transportation agency personnel are unfamiliar with best practices, streamlined processes, and mitigation strategies that can help expedite agreement processing and the successful delivery of projects. The suite of products developed during this phase of the project, including six training lessons and a virtual library of resources, is intended to augment the efforts of transportation agencies and railroad companies at bridging the knowledge gap and also to provide them access to information from a nationwide successful experience that they can customize for their individual needs. The need for such tools becomes all the more relevant when one considers that railroad companies are now in an expansion mode. They are important partners to fulfilling the new U.S. freight objectives that address national economic growth and increasing commerce globally while also mitigating road congestion. Nationwide, the road network is also growing, albeit at a slower pace. Moreover, the existing transportation infrastructure is aging; for example, more than 25% of the nationâs bridges are beyond their useful life or are structurally or functionally deficient. Many such structures cross or abut railroads and will require maintenance, preservation, rehabilitation, or replacement. These factors show that the interaction between transportation agencies and railroads will continue and in most states will increase. Therefore, there is a need to proactively mitigate the observed challenges on projects involving transportation agencies and railroads, and tools such as those developed during this project serve to promote such mitigation efforts. The following two project objectives were intended to expedite knowledge sharing and provide access to resources that could help promote the mitigation of challenges on projects involving transportation agencies and railroads: 1. Creation, maintenance, and delivery of a web-based virtual library of various model agreements, contracts, standard guidelines, and provisions; and 2. Development of training modules and other related materials on streamlined permitting procedures and model agreements. 6
What Does R16B, Tools for Communicating RailroadâDOT Mitigation Strategies, Hope to Achieve? The intent of this project was to allow users online access to details of successful existing practices so they could adopt them or customize them to meet their specific needs instead of starting from scratch to create and test them. Accessing the training lessons and library will help transportation agencies and railroad companies bridge the gap in knowledge and resources. Transportation agencies adopting project innovations as they are or customizing them for adoption will be able to fast-track the streamlining of various processes, which will save time and money and release the limited resources assigned to process activities to work on other priorities. Recognition of these benefits will expedite the nationwide adoption of these tried and tested best practices, which will result in significant savings of limited resources, as well as allowing for faster project delivery. An example of a best practice pertaining to process improvements is the streamlining of agreement processing to reduce the time from start to approval of an agreement. The clarity of work flow from the process improvements can minimize the number of unnecessary follow-up activities and revisions. The timely fulfillment of requirements detailed in the work flow for various steps can also minimize wasteful follow-up and reduce delays. Shaving a few months off each of the various steps through the use of such process improvements can add up to saving many months on each project. With 52 state and district transportation agencies working on numerous roadârail projects every year, the national impact from the adoption of this project innovation on project delivery and resource savings could be significant. Figure 3.1. Innovation adoption process. Great value and savings nationally will be achieved if even a handful of these innovations and process improvements are adopted by peer organizations nationwide. Each transportation agency adopting an innovation will save time and will be able to make better use of available limited resources. For example, even adopting a simple process improvement such as on flagging can result in significant cost savings, better use of resources for the railroads, fewer flagging costs for agencies, and less contentious relationships between the parties involved. When enough 7
transportation agencies use an innovation, it will reach its tipping point and become routine practice, as illustrated in Figure 3.1. As more agencies use the best practices and make refinements they will contribute to the library of resources, making it even more robust. In working on the first two phases of the project (initial research and communication and dissemination), the team became familiar with many of the common challenges faced on projects involving transportation agencies and railroads. The team also became familiar with the innovative practices, strategies, guidelines, and process improvements that have been used successfully to address many of these challenges, albeit in isolated pockets nationally. All the information gathered during the various phases of the project has been captured in the training lessons or uploaded to the virtual library. The web suite of products with the training lessons and the library make it convenient and easy for stakeholders to access a wealth of useful information from across the United States via the Internet. This easy online access can serve to expedite knowledge transfer. The training has been designed to allow users to quickly locate topics of interest to them. Users can access practices used by peers and adopt them as they are or customize them to meet their specific needs. 8
