WestConnex Project: An Essay On Sydney's Traffic Congestion And Pollution Solution.

Overview of WestConnex project

  The main focus is on the WestConnex project, which is the largest road infrastructure project. It is identified that before the starting of the WestConnex project, it became quite difficult to maintain proper motorway access and connections with Western Sydney. Additionally, the rising population, as well as the employment-based needs of the organizations, also created different types of issues, including traffic congestion, higher travelling times as well as increasing air pollution, which further created different types of challenges within day-to-day activities (Infrastructure and Regional Development 2022). After analyzing the situation, the NSW government decided to provide around $30 million in order to undertake the work of the project. The Australian Government has committed a budget of around $1.5 billion in properly funding and delivering WestConnex in proper partnership with the government of NSW. The project will be undertaken in four main stages in order to remove different types of bottlenecks, for relieving congestion and for successfully improving both speeds as well as reliability across Sydney. Additionally, the project is also identified to be beneficial for minimizing the travelling time between Parramatta and Sydney Airport.

The paper mainly focuses on a WestConnex Project, which will provide a 33 km of motorway for linking western and south-western Sydney with the city, Kingsford Smith Airport and Port Botany precincts. It is identified that the population, as well as employment along the M5 as well as M4 corridors, are generally anticipated for growing expotentially. It is identified that the movement of freight, as well as passengers at the Port Botany-Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, will generally get double in the next 20 years, and due to this, issues like traffic congestion as well as air pollution occurs. It is identified that the construction of the WestConnex roadway will generally help in addressing different types of issues by effectively streamlining traffic movement across Sydney in order to boost economic development within the area. In addition to this, WestConnex will be helpful in removing bottlenecks, relieving congestion and further helps in improving the speed, reliability as well as safety of travel across Sydney. Moreover, the project also helps to improve the quality of air around the tunnels once the tunnel gets open. Furthermore, the construction of the project helps in creating a skills legacy with thousands of workers who are undertaking proper certified training in order to help the staff in future projects.

 A stakeholder register is a project document that includes pertinent information regarding the stakeholders of the project. It generally includes people, groups as well as organizations that generally have a high interest in the project. The main purpose of the stakeholder register is to properly document who is mainly impacted by the project, their influence, as well impact on the progress of the project (Pedrini and Ferri 2018). The stakeholder register that is created for the WestConnex project is mainly provided within the table that is mainly provided below.

Reason behind the project

 As the population, as well as employment, are increasing around M5 and M4 corridors, therefore, a number of issues and challenges will be experienced by the common people due to traffic congestion as well as because of the higher travelling times. The WestConnex is a 33 km motorway that will  be helpful in connecting the western suburbs with two different international gateways of Australia. In addition to this, the project is also needed in order to reduce the total travelling time between Parramatta and Sydney Airport by around 40 minutes. Moreover, the project will also help in increasing the economic benefits by around $20bn.

Benefits of WestConnex project

The objectives are:

• To undertake the work of WestConnex project construction;
• To minimize traffic congestion as well as total travelling times;
• To increase the economic benefits of NSW;

Deliverables

 The deliverables that will be achieved after the successful completion of the WestConnex project are mainly elaborated below:

• M4 will be widened with four lanes in each direction, and an extra lane is mainly provided for the motorists.
• A new tunnel will be delivered with three different lanes in both the directions from M4 to Parramatta Road and City West Link on the Parramatta Road route.
• Undertaking the work of viaduct on the southern street of the church street.
• WestConnex roadway will be beneficial in minimizing traffic congestion as well as travelling times.
• Additionally, reports like project status reports, project plans, financial reports as well as project blueprints will also be delivered to the client on a time-to-time basis.

Assumptions

Different types of assumptions which are mainly occurred during the project progress in the WestConnex project are mainly illustrated below.

• It is assumed that the WestConnex project will not only reduce congestion and travelling time but also helps in improving the quality of air.
• It is also assumed that the WestConnex project will not only connect the communities but will also help in creating numerous job opportunities.
• It is assumed that around $16bn will be enough in order to finish the work of the WestConnex project.
• The project manager also assumed that the workers who were hired to complete the WestConnex project were experienced and quite skilled, and thus, they could be capable of successfully undertaking the project work quite effectively.

Constraints

The constraints which can occur during the execution of the WestConnex project are mainly elaborated below:

• The total amount of money that is funded is around $16 bn, and if it is identified during the progress of the WestConnex project that the budget was not sufficient, then the project will experience financial hurdles.
• Time of the project is also identified as a constraint, and if the project team of the WestConnex project is unable to finish the work by the end of 2023, then the project team will experience delay or schedule slippage during the project.

Stakeholders

  The project stakeholders who work for the progress of the WestConnex project are mainly listed below:

• Project manager
• Government
• Project planner
• Financial manager
• HR manager
• Suppliers
• Construction manager
• Contractor
• Civil engineers

Risks

 There are a number of risks which mainly can occur during the progress of the WestConnex project, and some of the risks are elaborated below:

• Schedule slippage:The second stage of the WestConnex toll road project experiences a delay of around one year as per the confidential documents. The faulty utility delays cause schedule slippage, and it becomes very much difficult for the team to meet the objectives of the project. In order to avoid schedule slippage, it is quite essential for the team to take  proper initiative for planning as well as tracking the project progress for avoiding the issue of schedule slippage and delay.
• Budget shortfall:It is identified that the second stage of the WestConnex project also experiences a budget shortfall of around $700 million. The budget shortfall problems mainly occur due to changing requirements as well as unforeseen planning approval-related requirements (Roadtraffic-technology.com 2022). In order to avoid a budget shortfall, it is quite  important for the team for controlling changes during the project progress to avoid financial hurdles.
• Environmental risk: The sound of the equipment that is used on the construction site creates noise pollution, which further affects the lives of the people as well as birds in that specific place. In order to resolve such issues, the project team needs to use equipment that produces fewer noise solutions so that it will not impact the daily work life of the people who are very much close to the construction site.
• Health and safety risk:If the team members who are hired to undertake the work of the project are not experienced, then they will experience a lot of difficulties as well as issues during the project, and they can face health and safety-related risk during the construction site (com.au 2022). In order to mitigate such issues, it is quite necessary for the project team to use proper health and safety protocols so that the health and safety of the team members would be maintained.
• Improper planning: A report that was submitted during the progress of the WestConnex project suggests that the project lacks a comparison of costs as well as benefits with alternative transport-based infrastructure. Additionally, the project also fails to consider the full range of the health impacts, which is also considered a major risk during the progress of the project. Lack of planning also causes overestimation of benefits that are mainly associated with the demand as well as travel-related time savings. Moreover, proper project planning is necessary from the initial phase of the project such that the manager and the contractors have proper information regarding the progress of the project.

The total amount of money which is mainly allocated for the WestConnex project is around $16bn, and the total amount of money is provided by the Australian Government.

Timeframe

 It is assumed that the WestConnex project will be completed successfully by the end of 2023.

Sign off

 The project charter will be signed off by the project manager, project sponsor as well as board of directors.

  The organizational structure that is mainly prepared for the WestConnex project is mainly provided below.

Figure 1: Organizational structure

(Source: Created by Author)

The organizational structure that is mainly prepared for the WestConnex project is a functional structure. As the entire work of the project is categorized into different functions and each of the functions or work will be performed by a specialist, therefore, the functional organizational structure is mainly suggested for the project. Functional organizational structure enhances productivity levels and further helps in increasing the growth of the skills (Topchiy and Tokarskiy 2018). It is identified that most of the employees who are part of the functional organizational structure have unique skills that help them to work much more efficiently, which further helps in increasing the productivity of the company. The higher confidence level generally helps in enabling the entire team to properly accomplish the project tasks much more accurately with very little supervision. The team members or stakeholders also have an opportunity of learning as well as enhance their skills by getting involved with different stakeholders of the organization (Stillman et al. 2019). Furthermore, a functional organizational structure generally helps the higher authority to save a huge amount of money in a number of ways. Successfully organizing or classifying staff as per the area of specialization generally helps in saving money because the work generally gets done much more efficiently. Moreover, the organization that brings people with the proper skill set or specialty together then it further assists in establishing clarity.

A balanced scorecard is one of the strategic management-based performance metrics that helps in enabling the companies to properly identify as well as improve the internal operations to help in the external outcome. It further helps in measuring the past performance-related data and further helps in providing organizations with proper feedback in order to make the right decisions in the future. The concept of the balanced scorecard was mainly introduced in order to gain a proper holistic view of the entire organizational performance. Traditional performance-related measures mainly focus on financial metrics (Fatima and Elbanna 2020). With the help of a properly balanced scorecard approach, different non-financial statements are mainly incorporated into the context of performance measures. The four perspectives of the balanced scorecard help in providing a very harmonized approach. It further helps in providing a proper historical snapshot while keeping a proper eye on the future value-generating based elements (Quesado, Aibar Guzman and Lima Rodrigues 2018). The four factors which are applied within the WestConnex Project are mainly elaborated on below.

• Financial: The performance of the project will be reviewed in the context of the financial perspective. It is identified that different types of factors or metrics like ROI, IRR, and NPV are mainly used for analyzing the financial performance of the project. The financial perspective helps in stating that the total benefit that is earned from the WestConnex project is around $20bn.
• Customer: The customer-related measures are properly assessed in context to the level of satisfaction, services, availability as well as products. The WestConnex project focuses on reducing congestion, travelling times as well as air pollution, which further helps in increasing the satisfaction of the clients or customers. The satisfaction levels of the customers help in understanding how the customers interact and are generally involved with the project (Benkova et al.2020).
• Internal: The core competencies of the project are mainly reviewed to determine the significant factors of the business procedures. Operational metrics like bottlenecks, wastage, schedule slippage, process delays as well as budget shortfall generally obstructed the progress of the project. Some of the significant metrics generally include the cycle time as well as information system efficiency rate that further affected the entire progress of the project.
• Learning and growth: During the progress of the WestConnex project, it is quite necessary to focus on innovating as well as empowering the employees in order to enhance the market share. It is identified that different types of pioneering metrics, including research as well as development-based expenses, are discussed to improve the competitive advantage of the project (Balaji et al.2021).

Stakeholder Register for WestConnex Project

By the application of the balanced scorecard, the project managers can be able to clarify the vision, mission, as well as objectives of the project, and it further helps in outlining different types of project-related outcomes for catering to all the areas, including internal, customer, financial, well as learning as well as growth. Furthermore, it determines proper performance-based indicators for tracking the progress of the project. The use of a balanced scorecard further helps in discovering various types of project roadblocks for successfully eliminating them.

A number of recommendations are provided for project governance in the WestConnex project, and the recommendations are mainly provided below:

• It is recommended to use proper project governance techniques in order to empower the project professionals to successfully execute the responsibilities as well as to define the delegated limits of authority in order to establish escalation routes for different types of issues as well as change requests.
• Project governance is very much recommended while undertaking the WestConnex project for successfully mitigating the risks that occur during the project and for providing the proper guidance as well as direction for the managers of the project.
• The project team must focus on the project governance-related frameworks, roles as well as responsibilities and stakeholder engagement in order to motivate the team to finish the work that is mainly assigned to them within the allocated time as well as budget (Derakhshan, Turner and Mancini 2019).
• While monitoring as well as controlling the project governance framework, it is recommended that the project manager must need to undertake proper meetings, reporting, project management control procedures, and risk and issue management.
• It is recommended to use a proper project governance model for making the right decisions during the progress of the project to accomplish the objectives and goals. Project governance helps in providing direction for successfully defining decision-making procedures as well as metrics in order to validate the impact of the project so that the project would bring a positive impact on the success of the project (Lappi et al.2018).

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