It's great to be back in
this wonderful city where I
spent six years, wonderful years
actually at the TTC, our iconic
TTC and and so it's great to see
so many familiar faces around
the room, including lots of TTC
is out there.
So keep up the great work.
And I'm also wanted to be here
at the Board of Trade that does
so much to support this city and
region, so lots to cover.
As you said Angela in your kind
introduction, I'm now in 35
years in public transport.
So that journey is now
continuing at Amtrak where my
mission is to hopefully finally
get one of along with the Canada
to finally get the US into the
high speed rail club.
It really is an anomaly that the
US of all of the the sort of
major developed developed
countries around the world does
not have true high speed rail.
We've got the Acela which is
great, but it's a high speed
train that is held back by the
the various disadvantages of
running along none specific
infrastructure or not a true
high speed route between Boston
and DC.
So I'm looking generally at
corridors across the US but
specifically one very exciting
project, watch this space 240
mile route between Dallas and
Houston in which we're hoping to
deploy yet to be determined.
We're hoping to deploy the
legendary Shinkansen bullet
train and bring that to the
United States.
So that will be quite the
achievement if we can pull it
off.
But of course, it's not my first
big infrastructure project at
the TTC.
Our mission between 2012 and
2017 was to simultaneously
deliver not just one but five
major projects, all of which
were infrastructure in their own
ways.
New streetcars and barn rocket
trains on Line 1, automatic
train control roll out of Presto
and the Toronto yachts.
But I know subway extension or
the TYSSE and all five were duly
delivered at the same time as we
made an all out push at the same
time to improve all aspects of
our customer service progress.
Which under the leadership of my
friends Josh Cole who's here
today and Karen Stints, TTC
chairs led to the TTC being
awarded the prestigious
outstanding Transit System of
the Year award of which we were
very proud of those projects.
And you know they all had their
own challenges.
It was the TYSSC that presented
by far the biggest challenge,
and that experience colored how
I subsequently approached
delivery of London's Elizabeth
line some five years later.
And between those two projects,
I've certainly learned what it
takes to successfully deliver a
major project by making mistakes
and learning as you go along the
way.
Not as an engineer, I'm not an
engineer, but as a transit
leader who never had the luxury
of just focusing on the project.
You also had the small matter of
delivering service.
TYSSC and London's Crossrail,
which as you know, subsequently
became called the Elizabeth
line, both got into real trouble
with the root causes of that
trouble being clustered around a
number of factors, which and I
want to talk about.
And it was so interesting here
what hearing what Dan had to say
because I was finding myself
mentally ticking off the boxes.
It's so true what he covered,
because that's definitely my
experience as well.
So it is a truism in life that
if you plan, if you sorry, if
you fail to plan, then you're
planning to fail.
No one sets out to do that, of
course, but too often projects
get underway before key elements
have been put into place, and
the most common traps for any
project revolve around
deficiencies in in the classic
scope, budget, structure and
schedule.
So what are you looking to
build, What's the available fund
funding?
How is the project set up, and
how long have you got?
Pretty basic questions.
And these issues are all
inextricably linked, and yet
they frequently get in cited as
inadequate in post project post
mortems, and they constantly
resurface as the root cause of a
project's malaise.
We never seem to learn, and too
often, and Dan covered this
point too often.
The desire for a positive
political announcement drives
key decisions that always come
back to haunt you several years
down the line because political
leaders and other leaders, civic
leaders eager to create a legacy
and keen to put a spade into the
ground, push for the shortest
possible timeline with the
flashiest assets at the lowest
possible cost.
Sound familiar?
Now, Value of money, of course,
and the desire for excellence
and ambitious schedules are not
inherently bad.
But each risks assumption that
you will adopt & up to
herculean, often impossible
schedules, and for hopelessly
inadequate budgets in turn.
Stressed transit executives,
mindful of who?
The bosses often feel that they
have no choice but to accept
deep down that they know what
they know to be unrealistic.
Marching orders hoping that all
will be resolved once the
problem gets underway.
Now.
Never the case.
Bosses compound their own misery
if they don't pay attention to
the contract structure, because
so often that influences how
things then unfold.
So it's key to building success
from the start.
You must go lock the scope down.
Budgets must be realistic and
know that does not always mean
going for the lowest price.
Contracts must be flexible and
manageable, and sufficient
contingency must be built into
the schedule to accommodate
unforeseen problems.
Now of course, this is easier
said than done, but it's
incumbent upon the chief
executive, the CEO or whoever,
but the leader of the
organization who will inherit
the project?
It is incumbent upon them to
insist upon such basics as the
scope of a project, its budget
and timeline from the get go.
After all, it's their head on
the block.
When we launched the Fast
forward plan to modernize New
York City's transit system in
2018, we'd figured out how to
resignal the subway, the city's
vast subway, in an unprecedented
time frame, just 10 years
overall and new signaling for
90% of passenger journeys in
half that time.
So I was pretty pleased with
that.
I thought, you know this will go
down well.
This compared very well with the
pedestrian pace of resignaling
up to that point, which had
assumed a 40 year time frame.
So we're talking about 10 years
to do the lot, not 40 and five
years to do 90% of passenger
journeys.
So I've somewhat taken aback and
this was in May of 2018.
Five.
No, but let's see, February,
March, April, May, four months
after I'd got there.
We didn't mess about in putting
that plan together.
Four months into my tenure, I
was taken aback to be told in no
uncertain terms by the then
governor If MTA management are
saying it will take 10 years to
re signal the subway, then I
will need to change MTA
management.
So I thought, well, that's a
good start.
I've only been here four months
and I've already had a shot
across my powers.
So you got a choice then, right?
You just go, yeah, yeah, fair
enough, Governor.
Fair enough.
We'll do it in four years.
No, it was already an ambitious
plan.
So I stood my ground, managed
expectations.
More on that shortly and
resisted calls to slash the
schedule.
Fast forward moved ahead a pace,
and it is being delivered to
this day, albeit under the less
catchy moniker of the MTA
capital plan.
Back to our case studies in both
London and Toronto, the way the
contracts have been structured
caused conflict almost from the
get go, leading to time wasting
disputes that impacted critical
path and requiring interventions
that I will cover in my third
lesson later on in London, when
the tunnelling contract ran
late, Bond Street Station
suffered immediate delay.
Indeed, that station ended up
opening five months after the
rest of the line and and and
that was that was a, you know, a
real shame for the project
because the rest of it had
opened in May of 20/20/2022 in
Toronto.
The project found itself caught
in multiple disputes with and
between contractors, the result
being a cottage industry of
claims and counterclaims that a
different contract structure
might have avoided.
Meanwhile, back in London, the
the line got into difficulty
because the time allowed to
address the challenge of systems
integration.
Anyone can build the the civils,
but the systems integration was
woefully underestimated and when
the tunneling of major civils
wrapped, which is no mean feat,
the then project leadership
proudly proclaimed.
This was in 2018 proudly
proclaimed that an on time on
budget finish would be achieved
thereby bucking the norm for
mega projects.
I was at New York City Transit
by that point and I remember
sending my Chief Capital Officer
to find out how this miracle had
happened in the UK.
Whoops, this was the middle of
2018.
By the end of 2018, it was
declared this the project wasn't
going to open.
In fact, it had one more year to
go.
But actually, it had nearly four
more years to go.
Dawning realization around the
complexity of completing the
cavernous stations, of
integrating new trains with a
novel signaling system and the
sheer challenge of piercing
together the world's first
digital railway led to one
missed deadline after another.
The scope had clearly not been
understood, leading to
inevitable knock on damage to
both time and costs.
So lesson #1, get your basics
right or you live to regret it.
OK #2 very closely linked to
getting those basics right.
In fact, I'd call it another
basic at the stage.
At all stages of a project,
you've got to keep your
stakeholders on side and this
extends just beyond keeping your
political masters suite.
So you know, upon reflection, I
didn't do that as adequately in
New York that you know, I could
have managed that relationship
better.
But we are where we are.
Local government?
Sorry.
Local community groups,
customers, business
representatives, and your
colleagues are critical to the
smooth progress of a project,
especially when construction is
taking place in a sensitive
neighborhood.
Here's a good example from
Toronto.
Construction of a new streetcar
barn at Lakeshore and Leslie was
never going to be easy, and
things didn't always go as
smoothly as we wanted.
One bright light, though, was
the community outreach program,
which not only delivered
countless community meetings and
town halls, it also featured a
drop in center on Queen to
answer questions and deal with
problems as they arose.
Very, very good practice and
such community engagement is
something we pay great
attention, attention to when
launching that Fast forward
project in New York City.
Transit re signaling, the
subway, putting in elevators,
reimagining the bus network.
It all needed to be explained to
skeptical New Yorkers.
My mantra being that the game
would be worth a little pain
while the works were undertaken.
So we undertook A grueling round
of town halls, community
meetings, political ones to ones
across all 5 boroughs, nearly
100 events in all, and it was
hard work.
But by the end we had huge
political and public support and
a mandate to deliver the plan,
which is super important, I
would say of equal importance.
However, it's also to manage
your contractors, which is
predetermined by how the
contracts are set up in the
first place.
In my opinion, a partnership
approach is the only way to
achieve success and in both
London and Toronto mounting
pressure, political criticism,
rising costs and slipping
deadlines quickly impacted
relationships with and between
contractors and this led to more
time being spent on finger
pointing and deflection than
getting on with the job and this
cannot be allowed to continue.
Typical of this was the
situation on TYSSE and to a
lesser extent the Elizabeth
line, where some contractors
took a highly combative approach
to the point of prioritizing
settlement of commercial
disputes over delivery, whilst
other others agreed to a more
enlightened parallel approach in
which work continued while the
money was sorted out.
Now to be fair, many of the
disputes centered around changes
to scope and just telling a
contractor to live with it and
swallow the cost isn't really
the answer.
All the more reason to get that
contractual regime right from
the start, as I mentioned
earlier, and it's the
responsibility of the project to
set the tone, not the
contractors the project's
responsibility.
And that means declaring early
on, early on, that all involved
in a project are partners.
Treat them with respect, fix
problems together, and don't
resort straight to a directive
or a dispute.
And finally, management of
stakeholders also means
sometimes having to rein in the
natural desire for shiny new
things.
I'm a fan of proven products,
Dan made this point.
I'm a big fan of proven products
of designs that work and where
someone else has ironed out the
initial problems.
It makes sense, right Martha.
It's why we proposed A proven
modern CBTC signaling system for
New York when others won't say
who wanted to invent something
from scratch.
And it's why I'm also excited to
be working on a project now for
Amtrak where we do intend to use
Shinkansen technology.
Why?
Because it has a spectacular
reliability and safety record.
I'm all for progress, but if it
ain't broke, don't fix it.
So lesson 3, Let's talk about
leadership and the importance of
tight governance and effective
project controls.
It's all too it's all too
tempting for some leaders to
delegate all aspects of a
project, to deflect questions
around progress to a third
party, or to put all the blame
on the contractors.
No, even if the project in
question is being delivered by a
separate or a subordinate
entity, as was the case with the
Elizabeth Line, the Transit
Executive cannot and must not
recuse themselves from the
project.
They cannot reframe their
responsibility.
It's only starting with trial
OPS, or just turning up on
opening day, tempting though
that might be.
In London, Crossrail, the
project name for what became the
Elizabeth line, was actually
overseen by a separate board
with only loose links to the
Transport for London hierarchy,
and various project delays led
to ATFL presence being put onto
that board.
But when that said body, as I
said earlier, announced in mid
2018, the opening that year was
no longer possible, the Mayor of
London was completely
blindsided.
His go to council, the commit,
the then Commissioner of
Transport for London was equally
caught out by this unexpected
turn of events and outrage
ensued.
I remember watching this from
New York.
Now here's the rub.
Either the project and in turn
transit leadership did know that
the project was in trouble and
chose not to say or they were
blissfully unaware, which I
would argue is even worse.
On taking up the commissioner
role in June of 2020.
I was not about to fall into
that trap.
I insisted on bringing Crossrail
in house as a condition of my
engagement, but not before we've
done some due diligence on the
true status of what remained to
be done importing the Elizabeth
line project Crossrail did mean
importing full accountability
and risk to TSTFLS reputation,
but to me it was the right
course of action.
We had to know the detail and I
personally had to be fully
accountable.
So what did this mean in
practice?
Every day.
And they loved it.
Every day for two years I made
the project CEO and other key
execs have an O 800 call for me
to go through the previous 24
hours progress and to address
issues before they ballooned.
Where problems did arise, and
there were many, we I I
personally called the CEOs of
the contractor concern to ensure
that we were given global
priority.
It was exhausting, but TF LS
reputation was at risk, and the
prize was certainly worth it.
In Toronto, that corrosive,
confrontational back and forth
between the project and its
contractors had to be stopped,
not least when it became
apparent that an already delayed
project faced the very real
prospect of several more years
worth of delay.
And painful though it was, we
brought in a new management team
to change the dynamic to
implement tight project
controls, to track cost and
schedule, to get a grip on
critical path, and to get the
job across the line.
Simply put, if you do not have
adequate controls and
governance, you risk a project
getting out of control.
You fool yourself into thinking
you're further along than you
really are, and you will reap
the consequences in terms of
negative impacts upon budget and
schedule.
And if things are headed South,
you must take action.
So, commercial sensitivities
notwithstanding, honesty, sorry,
honest, timely and transparent
communication is key, whether a
project is moving along nicely
or if it's getting into trouble.
And particularly with the
latter, sticking one's head in
the sand is never an option.
And those stakeholders whom I
mentioned earlier have an
absolute right to be kept
informed.
And this was certainly the case
in London and Toronto.
When I realized that change was
necessary if we were to arrest
slippage on TYSSE, I sat through
hours of questioning in public
by my commissioners and City
Council, who rightly wanted
assurances around such a
controversial and dramatic move.
Remember that Josh and a thank
you for backing me.
Ultimately we got the go ahead
against the commitment not to no
further slippage nor a budget
increase, and my commitment that
day that we would have neither.
No more time, no more money, was
to a 27, a 2017 opening, a
challenge that we duly met in
similar vein.
Having done the homework on what
was possible, I publicly
committed to no further slippage
to schedule or recourse to
public funds for the Elizabeth
line beyond those declared by
the outgoing Cross Rail board
when we brought the project in
house.
And this meant we had to achieve
an opening window of the first
half of 2022, a date that was
deliberately broad but that
could be refined as things went
on and became more certain.
Such use of declared opening
windows is good practice in many
any major projects as it
balances the need to let
stakeholders know what's going
on without announcing a specific
date before that is definite,
and my final lesson relates to
teamwork, because while much
falls to the chief executive,
it's the efforts of the entire
team that deserve and deliver
success.
It is crucial to put your best
people into key roles if you
were to succeed, and if that
means bringing in new faces or
seconding people to the project,
then so be it.
In London, it was apparent from
the start or the start of my
tenure that the stations were
nowhere near as complete as was
previously thought.
You know, we declared this
opening window, but there
goodness knows there was a lot
still to do.
So we brought in the same
outside expert, Mike Dunham, the
same outside expert that have
pulled the TYSSE stations across
the line back in Toronto.
And we also brought in the My
Old TYSS project Director into
London to coordinate the program
and to focus the glide path to
completion.
It worked a treat on TYSSE.
We brought in a proven railway
operator in the form of Chief
Operating Officer Mike Palmer to
manage the incredibly complex
task of starting up a new
railway using new trains and a
new signalling system.
Which is no mean feat right?
Doing all three at the same
time.
All of my executives did an
outstanding job, including many
who were here in this room
today.
In both cities, we were
determined to achieve a flawless
startup because that's what the
public have paid for and that's
what the the stakeholders both
expect and deserve.
And in both cases, an erroneous,
annoying fire alarm activation
at Paddington notwithstanding,
this was achieved and tremendous
headlines ensued.
When the Prime Minister, Premier
and Mayors cut the ribbon in
Toronto at the end of 2017 and
when Her Majesty the Queen
opened the Elizabeth line in May
of 2022, that of course made all
of the headlines.
But a lot goes into delivery of
major projects and is it is to
the TTC and TfL teams that the
real credit lies.
So these then are my lessons
from a lifetime in public
transit projects.
Get these basics right and you
will set yourself up for
success.
They're certainly guiding us now
as we contemplate this high
speed train for Texas.
Every aspect of budget, scope,
schedule and structure must be
got right if we are to move
forward.
So, exciting times.
Watch this space.
Thank you very much.
There's, there's a lot to unpack
there, Andy.
And we got about 9 minutes
between US and cocktails.
So we're going to, we're going
to keep it focused.
I want to, I want to dive right
right in because you said two
things that really resonated
with me and I saw a few heads
move in the room and and one was
that there's this cottage
industry of claims and
counterclaims that has spawned
around these projects and also
that the contract structure is
really what promotes the
partnership.
And so I I just would, I know
you talked about your five
lessons learned, but maybe the
way to frame this question is if
if you could go back in time and
do one thing differently on the
Spadina Subway project, what
what would that have been based
on what you plan?
I think you know given the
experience, I think without
question it would be to have
paid more attention to have got
the contract, the contract
structure right.
I mean you know it's something
that we walked into, but if you
get the contract structure
right, so much falls out of that
in terms of the way the the
contracts gel together because
invariably there's there's
linkages, there's knock ONS.
You know if you do, if you've
got a a tunneling contractor,
well then quite often the
station's contractor is waiting
for the tunneling to go through
that particular site.
If you've got the contract, the
contract right in terms of
scope, you have fewer variations
and that you want to avoid the
variations and the change orders
because that drives cost.
And because that also leads to,
again, unnecessary arguments
about who's who's who, who who
pays that dime.
And if you don't get the the the
sort of behaviors right between
the contractors and with
yourself as the project team,
then again, you just waste so
much time.
And more focus is put onto the
commercial side of getting the
job done than than actually and
doing physical work.
So I think if you get your
contracting structure right
based on a realistic budget, a
realistic schedule and a clearly
understood scope of work, then
you are setting yourself up for
success.
OK, yeah.
And and I'm going to follow up a
question about collaborative
models, but just to get back to
to the claims aspect of it,
you've obviously been involved
in a number of large projects, a
number of large claims.
Any lessons learned or tips that
you would offer to the audience
specifically once you find
yourself in that situation, when
you're in a project that's mired
in claims, I would say get
yourself a very good claims
expert.
And and we did actually there
were three people we brought in
when the TYSSE got into trouble.
There was, there was a number,
there was actually a a addition
to the project team, but they're
all put into the same Toronto
team.
One was a project director, one
was the stations expert that we
brought in to drive the stations
to the finish line.
And it's remarkable.
It just had an eye for what was
critical path and critical path
wasn't up to that point clearly
understood.
But the third person was a very
much a commercial expert because
you know at the end of the day
we were dealing with contractors
who were there to make money.
And so in quite a few cases, I
think they probably had a
legitimate case, but in others
they didn't.
So to have your own person
within your own team who
themselves, and this was, I
think the, the really clever
part of the people that we
brought in, who that person
quite often was himself the
commercial representative on the
other side of the table.
In other words, representing the
contractor arguing with the
client.
This time he was in sitting in
my camp, so the contractors knew
that I had someone who, yeah,
they can pull the ball over my
eyes.
I'm a linguist.
I'm not an engineer, but they
knew you can't ******** this
bloke because he knows you're
************.
So it was really, really
important to have someone who
could anticipate what the claim
was likely to be, what the key
points of that claim were, which
bits were valid and which were
just people trying it on.
And we would develop and we
developed in each case, a
strategy to minimize the cost on
the dollar.
And we actually, we've achieved
all but one.
By the time I left there was 1
outstanding.
We got a pretty good return on
the dollar actually in terms of
the claims.
Yeah, I know one of the things
that we've learned at
Infrastructure Ontario is the
earlier you can get those
experts in and have
conversations at the project
level to try to resolve the
claims before they start to
escalate.
Because once you get into formal
dispute proceedings, they tend
to the snowball and get away
from you a little bit and things
get escalated.
Yeah, but let's talk a little
bit about claims avoidance
because that's where we all want
to go and collaborative models.
You've had the benefit of
working in multiple different
jurisdictions.
Who does it best, where, Where
have you seen it work really
well?
I think all the jurisdictions
I've worked have had challenges.
I think Australia was pretty
good actually and which is an
interesting place to work
because the Aussies do like a
Rao, they do like to, they do
like to have a quite a combative
relationship in many ways.
But I was peripherally involved
with a a project there that by
and large from what I could see
was pretty robust in terms of
the way the contracts have been
set up and and the way the
commercials have been set out.
But certainly my experience in
London with Elizabeth Lyon,
Toronto with the TYSSE, and from
what I've seen in the US, I
think we all fall into the same
traps.
And I remember my pointer at the
in the in the words that or in
the speech that I gave where so
often the same mistakes get made
time and time again.
Which is bizarre because there's
there's so many case studies of
how to, how not to do it and
therefore how to get it right
going forward.
And yet we never seem to learn.
So that's certainly something
that's very much front and
Center for me as I now embark
upon this new national role in
the US Yeah, I mean certainly
we're looking at Australia, the
UK, other jurisdictions to learn
lessons in the application of
collaborative models.
And I think Fred touched on it
in that doing the assessments up
front, determining whether or
not you have a good partner that
you're entering in is is pretty
key.
It it comes down to the people
many times.
At the end of the day, do you
have the right people around the
table to to take that bring that
claims avoidance mindset to the
table?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean you know it is it is
commercial you're in it the the
contractors are in it to make
money.
I I get that.
But equally you are typically
the recipient and the guardian
of public funds.
So there's always going to be a
bit of a a bit of a tension
there.
But I've always thought that if
you if both sides understand
those two dynamics and
understand and respect that
you've each got stakeholders
that you have to look after,
then both parties in a in a
positive relationship can still
prevail.
What's interesting in my current
role, particularly Texas
Central, is a whole new dynamic
as I'm.
I'm working extensively with
Japanese partners and that's a
whole new cultural experience, a
very, very different tone to
negotiations that you have to
master.
So you need to know who you're
dealing with on the other side
of the table.
But I still think even with
different cultures, basic
etiquettes and basic civility
really do help move things
along.
Yeah.
And and I really like your
lesson learned about leadership
matters because it's it's also
about when you have the wrong
people in the role you need to
be prepared to make those
changes you do and and it's
never personal and it's never
pleasant and you try to avoid
that but you're a poor leader if
you if you can see that a
project is just sleepwalking or
or barreling into trouble and
you don't do anything about it,
you're not you are not doing
your job properly If you duck a
a difficult decision you've got
to step up to the plate.
Yeah, absolutely.
One last question, just in the
time that we have left, we
haven't talked a lot about the
asset management and operating
impacts of these major projects
on, on, on, on our transit
system.
So tell us and you talked a lot
about project controls and the
important of project controls,
but tell us a little bit about
your risk management approach
when it comes to taking into
consideration the asset
management and the and the long
term life cycle and operating
for these assets.
So that's an excellent question
and again that that, that that
could have been a 6th or even
7th lesson learned that a lot of
projects forget or just don't
don't put enough emphasis on
understanding the whole life
cost of an asset.
So you know a project might get
delivered for there or
thereabouts and and everyone
celebrates, but then you
suddenly realize you have just
you have just inherited or set
in place a a massive operating
liability and you suddenly
realize that you've got huge
OpEx costs, huge maintenance
costs.
And if you haven't factored
those in and considered such
things as renewals, then the
you'll soon have the gloss taken
off your project.
When people realize that they've
just taken on something that,
yeah, might look nice, it's
great.
It serves a purpose.
But there's actually going to be
a drain on your resources if
you've not thought of that.
So you know that that's why
project managers have paid the
big bucks.
There's a lot of very, very key
points that have to be made-up
front.
And and that's why I made the
point, though, that you must
take time to think all of that
through, you know, picking up on
Dan's points.
You must think all of that
through and not allow yourself
to get Steamrollered into
signing up for something which
is hopefully hopelessly sorry,
ambitious, and is is only going
to come back to haunt you.
Yeah.
And maybe I'll just wrap by
saying at Infrastructure
Ontario, we do still believe in
the tenants of integrating
operating and life cycle into
projects and appreciating a lot
of the transit projects in the
market right now are not fixed
price.
So it makes it a little bit more
challenging for a traditional P3
or DBFM.
But we are looking at solutions
that will allow us to continue
to integrate the operating in
the life cycle.
Because you're right, especially
with the new technologies and
different things being
introduced.
You don't want, you don't want
that surprise.
No, you do not.
Absolutely.
OK, wonderful.
Thank you, Andy.
Appreciate your time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
